#// hh I don’t want to be up this early I’m so tired… but if any of you knew me back from 2017-2019

[blacknpurplewarpster]

He’s extremely exhausted this morning that he needs to drown himself in some good wake up juice.

[straightouttatheashes]

Fluff

DWC 2022 (August) Day 5 - Fluff / Shiver

---

Early morning after the Wonderlight Ball, during the Tournament of Ages.

After a night of dancing, enjoying performances, coming down from the thrill of the awards and finishing all that up with some stargazing...Phe was absolutely wasted. Barely just after ditching her dress and jewellery, she’d crashed onto the bed, in the embrace of some jumbo plushies they’d recently bought...and won. Granted, there wasn’t much space left for her in the bed, let alone Barry - so she was sleeping in a rather awkward position, the plushies having taken up the majority of the space.  The grand item haul that had been discarded on the floor, still in bags, could be put away at a later time. Right now? Pheonix was too tired to function.

Trying his best to climb into the bed, Barry huffed and pushed the giant hyena plushie to the side - getting a mumble out of Phe as she barely stirred. Grabbing her arm, he tugged her and huffed louder. “Babe, I can’t breathe in this fluff.”

Letting out another mumble and a sleepy groan, Phe shifted a little as Barry pulled on her arm - causing one of the plushies to roll to the side slightly. “What.” Scrunching her face up, she tried to open her eyes. “Whasgoinon.”

“I can’t fuckin snug ya.” Barry squirmed a little closer to her, but it was still rough. Like trying to climb a mountain in his tired, exhausted state. “There’s too many animals. And I can’t even find Lil B.”

Wrinkling her nose, Phe moved an arm to rub at her face so she could kind of look at him. Sleep was still trying to grip at her. “Hh-oh...B...did he even join us?” She couldn’t remember. Last night had been a lot. “What time is it...?” Sitting up, she pushed the plushies over to give Barry some space.  “Gods...we do need more space, huh?”

“It’s late...we can’t pass out like this.” Late being, super stupid early in the morning, at least. Barry looked around at the collection that had started to grow each time there was an event, and certain plushie stalls. Especially those that sold jumbo ones. Winning the other two in the gumball machine was just...dumb luck. “We can talk about moving in the mornin?” He reached over to find Phe’s face to pat.

When Barry reached for her, she pulled him closer now that there was enough space for the both of them. Well, barely still. One plushie probably found it’s unfortunate place on the floor. “Heh.” She chuckled quietly. “Mmm, at first it was a joke...but...maybe a move wouldn’t be too bad.” She finished her sentence as she curled into him.

Wrapping an arm around her, Barry scoffed lightly. “I like the shack but we need more space. We have so many children now.” He teased with a small laugh.

Phe sighed. “I like it too. Pandaria’s a lovely place but...” She hummed, thinking back to Zuldazar and the beaches around Booty Bay and Stranglethorn. However, when Barry teased her about the plushies being their children, she laughed and pushed his face a little.

“Oh shut up. I don’t see you complaining about them.” The words were barely out of her mouth when she’d be interrupted from any further conversation by a barrage of loud chirps and chatters. Lil B had arrived, and was making his presence known. Make room for Little B, you heathens.

Barry chuckled again as she pushed on his face. “I’m complaining now! It was hard to snug you! Gods forbid, B’s just as bad sometimes.” Speak of the otter and he shall appear. He looked over as the little guy chirped his way on up onto the bed. “Aw, he’s mad at you.”

“Guess we need a bigger bed!” The solution could always be just putting the plushies on the floor, or elsewhere. But who wanted that? She was going to lean in for a sneaky kiss, but Lil B was already pushing himself up between the two of them - wriggling his way in. Fortunately for him, he was the cutest cockblock. “No he’s not.” By the way Lil B flopped over, it was time for pets and attention. And he’d get just that.

Barry raised a brow as he reached down to pet the otter. “The plushies need their own bed.” Watching Lil B for a moment, he chuckled. “Maybe he’s excited we’re home again.”

 “They need their own room! A room dedicated to plushies.” Phe snickered, just imagining it. But she’d trail off for a moment of silence as she looked to Lil B, making himself comfortable in between them. “...You know. You joke about children, but I think we already have one. And yeah, I think he is. We’ve barely been home all week.” She had brought Lil B along to a market in a baby sling that one time.

“A whole room, damn. What kind of new place were you thinking of?” Barry asked, and then rolled his eyes. “Eh probably. That’s what pets are for. We could have brought him to chill in a tent or something.” He gave a light shrug of his shoulder.

“Mm...a shack like this. Maybe a bigger bungalow, more coastal, you know? This place is great for location with Marble and the Cloud Serpents near by...but I think she’d be okay now moving somewhere else.” Phe sighed, trying to get at least a little bit closer to Barry without disturbing the otter.  “Maybe could find somewhere with a good place to properly dock the ship...” They’d be leaving on adventures on that soon, no doubt. She could feel it. A little laugh at Barry’s late recommendation on the tent. “You think he would have stayed in there though?” Lil B would have been unleashed on the entirety of ToA, whether Phe and Barry wanted him to be or not.

“May need something more than this.” Barry moved his arm a little bit more under Phe to bring her in closer for those quality snuggles. “We can take a look around the coast before anywhere else. Oh, if we could find a place for the ship, that’d be nice.” He then snickered at the thought of the otter at ToA, and not staying in the tent. “Oh true. He’d go out and steal hearts and coins.”

“Mm, since going to Zuldazar though...” Phe began to muse. “I kind of fell in love with the place. If we can set up there, that’d be cool. Otherwise, maybe go back to your roots for a bit? Obviously not smack bang in Booty Bay, but I’m sure we can find some land for ourselves somewhere.” She smiled at him, enjoying the closeness.  As Lil B chattered away, she chuckled and scratched his head. “Watch out, he’ll take your job.”

“Zuldazar would be nice. Bit out of the way though, so it’s something to think about.” The idea was tempting, however. Plenty of adventures to have in Zuldazar. “Oh? Yeah, maybe Booty Bay. It can be a bit rough though. We could look around...” He nodded as he thought about it. “Pfft. Then he should wear the Tart tabard.” Barry scoffed at Lil B.

“Somewhere a little more private, at least. I like that about living out here.” Despite the Jade Temple and a fishing village nearby, the Shack did have a good bit of privacy to it. Phe chuckled and rested her head against him. “Besides, I think we suit more beachy vibes anyway.” Pandaria was lovely, but not beachy. “Oh hey that’s an idea. I should give him a little glittery pink bandana.”

“Oh yeah, private is important for me too. Besides our howling and wild sex, I like people not knowing my business.” Barry smirked, and then perked up at the idea of the beach, the smirk shifting into a lighter smile. “Mmm, we should look at some beaches...” Giving Lil B some more pats, he scoffed at the idea of the Tart tabard, but hey, he’d encourage it. “Yeah! Totally. I’ll write him an application and he can be the new ringleader.”

At the mention of howling, Phe raised a brow and looked up at him. “Who the fuck howls?” It wasn’t her. But right after that, she had to laugh. God. Trust Barry to say something like that. “After we recover from the week...let’s go do that, huh? Go scope out some areas and beaches we could make a new home at.” The thought excited her, and it was probably obvious to Barry with the way she smiled at him.

The possibilties with what they could do with their new place were endless. Well, to the imagination, at least. The Shack definately needed an upgrade, and it would be nice for Lil B to have his own area too. Somewhere bigger for the three, no, four of them. Marble was part of the family as well, obviously.  Goodbye renovated fishing shack. Hello tropical bungalows. @disruptanddisturb​ for mentions

@daily-writing-challenge​

[salamanderskin]

4, 14 and 25 for Ed and Frank please please please

Thanks so much for asking lovely <3 These are my OCs from the 1940s Cabaret series. More on them can be found in my fic archive and here.

"It's getting late early," Frank Westmore declares, squinting up at the darkening sky. He leans on the wall outside the backstage door and rolls a cigarette. He's actually steaming, his breath coming in clouds with beads of perspiration on his brow from the energetic cabaret number he's just run through three times from the top. 

"What does that even mean?" His boyfriend Edward laughs, rolls his eyes, leans in for the warmth of him. 

"What it says. Nights are drawing in. Be Christmas before you know it."

"Don't." Edward groans. "But yes, it is chilly."

Edward draws his coat around him with a shiver. There's a bitter edge to the little wind that whistles through the alleyway. It makes his nose drip and forces him to swallow against a hot, tender-feeling throat. He's about to say something more, but the subtle -snf-SNF- he hopes might clear his nose crests into a stuffy, ticklish feeling that just won't back down. He quickly has to sneeze, which he deals with in the usual fashion, with an almost-silent dip of his head towards his wrist. 

Frank doesn't even notice but finishes his fag and arches his back until his shoulders crack. He sweeps his hair back into submission and tilts his head at Edward. 

"Rehearsal's over. Pub?" 

"Sure." Edward agrees. 

So they gather their things, Frank changes his shirt and shoes and bids goodbye to the half of the cast who have the good sense to go home. Edward falls in with the gaggle making their way down the street to the pub. 

He has to keep pausing to blow his nose, or cough into his fist to try and scratch the itch developing at the top of his lungs. He's probably getting ill; everyone else in the theatre is at this time of year. A cold pint might not be the wisest thing in the world if he's getting sick but it would do wonders for his throat. The walk passes in a blur, his mind wandering far from the leaf-strewn pavement.

The next moment he has to sneeze. Pinching his nose shut and bobbing his head forward results in a repressed, "nxxxkt " that hurts his throat, while the force makes him stumble over an uneven paving slab. Frank's perennially quick reflexes mean an elbow is there to catch him without the dancer breaking his stride. It jars them both but Frank sets them back in step in no time, a motion as smooth as any choreographer could hope for.

"Tired?" He says, and offers a kiss to Eddie's cheek to show he doesn't mean anything by it. "Bless you!" He adds, when Eddie pinches his nose shut and bobs his head forward again.

…..

Inside the pub it isn't much warmer. Edward is happy to take the corner seat in a booth and have Frank lounge against him, providing both warmth and unspoken comfort even as he talks and flirts with the rest of the group. Edward is content to sit quietly and nurse his pint, taking sips to cool his throat. 

His nose is running steadily now, sending a ticklish sensation down the back of his sinuses every time he sniffles. Edward turns away to the walls of the booth and folds his handkerchief in one hand. With it cupped neatly over his nose he shudders a pair of sneezes that make his whole body knot.

"Bless you," Frank says beside him, stroking his thigh idly as he continues the conversation.

The touch is nice but Edward still has to "--Hupt-nntx! ---ntx!"

"Bless you." 

He tries to take a breath, tries desperately to stop, goddamnit, but only manages another run of "hh- hgxxt! --gxxt!", a pause and a shallow sigh where he hopes he might be done, then another pair so harsh that the glasses on the table shudder and clink. 

"Sweetheart, bless you!" Frank's voice has that soft edge to it which makes Edward want to lay his head on Frank's lap, regardless of company. The thought makes him blush and stutter as he explains, "Sorry. I think I'm coming down with something," to the group at large. 

"You don't say." 

Frank gives him a gentle shove which turns into an arm around his waist.

"That's nice and warm." 

"You’re cold?" Frank gives Edward his big serious eyes, all chocolate brown in the low light. "You should have said something. Here-" He fishes out his scarf and passes it around his boyfriend's neck. "Better now?"

"Yeah. Thanks." The scarf helps a lot, though the attention maybe helps more. Frank returns to the group conversation but sits closer and twines their fingers together under the table. Edward thinks he can feel the heat seeping up his arm and into his bones. It doesn't do much for the sniffles, however. His nose is starting to get properly stuffed-up in a way that sets him sneezing every ten minutes or so. It's more difficult to hold them back, too. With each pair of sneezes he ducks a little lower and Frank's eyebrows raise a little more.

"What are you st-aa-ring at-" he manages, then immediately loses his breath for a chaotic "hupt-gxxxt!-gxxt!" 

That last set takes a lot out of him; raising his head afterwards is like surfacing from underwater. He blinks groggily, aware he must look a state. 

"Frankie, take your man home before he infects the lot of us." Someone says, teasing, but not unkind. 

When he hears it spoken, Edward realises he does really, really want to go home. He's bone tired, his head hurts and his throat is sore in a way that makes him desperate for something to drink, but the rest of his bitter doesn't appeal at all. 

"Can we?" He asks Frank in an undertone.

"It's time we were heading out anyway." Frank declares at full volume. He sets his empty glass theatrically down on the table, shrugs at Eddie and downs the rest of his pint too before adding, "not because anyone's making us, mind," 

It takes a few moments to gather their coats and for the group to inform Edward that no one wants to see him at work tomorrow if he looks as rough as he does now. It's nice, feeling part of the group.

Out on the street, the lamps are lit and a little drizzle is beginning to fall. The two men pull their hats down low against the damp and begin the short walk back to Frank's flat. Edward coughs and sees his breath billow towards the orange light. It catches in his throat and once he starts coughing it's hard to stop. 

"I'd murder someone for a cup of tea." He says, when he has his breath back.

"I always knew that was a risk." Frankie nods. "Cut down in my prime for standing in the way of the kettle." He squeezes Edwards hand and quickens their step. "Come on. Tea in bed for you, I think. Sound good?" 

"That sounds wonderful."

[nanakibh]

Final Fantasy Agito: Gaiden 2, Chapter 1 Characters: Player, Miyu, Machina, Rem, Lean, Qator, Sice, Trey, Arecia Note: Rather than focusing on multiple different stories, this gaiden recounts the end of another cycle. It gets referred to as the “third cycle” of FF Agito, but I don’t think it’s literally the third cycle of the world. I’m not sure where exactly it belongs in the overall timeline. All I know is that this is the one that was supposed to finally lead to the arrival of the true Agito had the game been allowed to continue.

Thanks to @reverse-vampire for the screenshots which made this translation possible!

Gaiden 2, Chapter 1 The Final Battle of White-Vermilion

--Player, do you remember? The time when you and I first met.

>A cutscene panning over the cemetery with narration from Tohno.

So it seems like… No one came.

…It must have really hurt.

…You must be lonely.

…But, I won’t forget.

I’ll… do my best to remember you.

>The cutscene ends, focusing on a bouquet resting on a grave.

When Player and I met and when we parted, in the first world...

Since that time, the world has turned through countless Spirals, and each time, I was also reincarnated...

[Setting: Classroom]

Miyu: --Player... Hey, Player. Miyu, concerned: What's wrong? It's rare to see you spacing out like this. Were you thinking? Machina: We've been fighting for a while. Even Player must be getting tired. Rem: Are you okay? Player, please don't work too hard. >Lean enters the classroom. Lean: ...Whoops, looks like everybody's already here. Sorry for makin' you wait. Machina, scowling: You're late, Lean. Where have you been? Lean, brows furrowed: I was near the lab and ran into Kazusa. Lean, sighing: He suddenly went, "Wait, could you try this medicine for me?" Machina: ...Don't tell me you drank it? Lean: He said it was for the sake of his research, so I really wanted to help him as a fellow researcher... Lean: But then the Rep called for me, so I had to refuse. ...Uh, why? Would there have been a problem if I drank it? Rem: ...Yeeeah. I think it was probably for the best that you didn’t drink it. Right, Player? Lean: Really? ...Wait, more importantly! Rep, you had something important to say, right? Please, go ahead. Miyu: Alright. I'll explain today's strategy. Miyu: Three months have passed since the start of the fullscale war between the Concordia-Lorica Alliance and the Rubrum-Milites Alliance. Miyu: The Lorican army has already been silenced by our onslaught. The Concordian army is steadily losing their momentum. Miyu: Presently, Concordia's last dragon unit has abandoned their capital's defense to attack the Militesi capital of Ingram. Machina: Their last-ditch effort at a counterattack... or something? Concordia must be desperate. Miyu: However, if we take down their dragon unit, they'll be unable to fight any longer. It should be easy to invade their capital now, as well. Miyu: Therefore, it was decided that we'll be dispatching elite cadets to the capitals of both nations-- Miyu: So that we can carry out plans to subjugate the capital of Concordia and support Ingram at the same time. Miyu: Player. You guys must hurry and head to the capital of Milites! Miyu: Lend support to our Militesi allies in Ingram and defeat Concordia's dragon unit! Rem: Roger that! With this, it's all finally going to be settled... Lean: There's nothing to fear when the cadets and the Militesi army fight together. Lean: Isn't that right, Player?

Rubrum and Milites... Even within the repeating spiral, it's rare to see a world where the two join hands.

And the Representative... Even at that time, I'm sure she could feel it.

Player... Inside of you, there's a strong power that connects people...

Miyu (over COMM): Attention, all cadets! This is Representative Miyu Kagirohi. Miyu (over COMM): Our objective is to support the Militesi army in their battle. Now is the time for us to settle this war with Concordia and Lorica! Miyu (over COMM): Let's grasp the future together! May the Crystal guide us!

[Setting: Ingram, Milites]

Lean: Alright, let's do it! Player, Machina, Rem. Now’s the time to do or die! Rem: Right! When this battle's over, there will be peace... Let's do our best! Machina: Alright, everyone, get ready!

...At that time, they still didn't know.

Because they didn't know, they believed strongly.

Hmm... I wonder if you, who hadn't forgotten, knew what would happen. Player.

That fact that that scene, which had been burned into our eyes hundreds of millions of times, would happen again...

>A battle begins where Player and the others fight their way through Ingram.

Machina: I can't believe that Concordia's dragon unit still has so much strength left... Lean: Their offense is rather intense. This must be what they mean when they say that a cornered rat will bite a cat! But it's not like we can lose, either!

Lean: Player, the timing of that attack was perfect! As expected! Rem: There are still a lot of enemies here! Stay alert!

Rem: They even brought such a large dragon with them...?! A really strong one is coming, everyone! Be careful! Machina: Kgh... Player, please lend me support! I'll cut my way through!

Lean: Hh... Huff... Huff... It's not finished yet. When this battle is over, the war will be over...! Rem: Right. The enemy's desperate, too... We can't lose now! Let's make it through this!

Lean: ?! Crap, that's... That's a really big one! Get ready! Machina: The number of enemies has noticeably decreased, though. If we can beat these guys... It'll be over! Everyone, let's go!

Rem: Huff... Huff... We... We won...? Lean: Yeah. It's over... It's finally over!! YEAH!!

After an incredibly daunting amount of time... Most things have become faded and hazy.

But... Player.

You're the one thing I can still remember vividly.

The good times we spent together and the things we believed in... Those were the things that helped me continue moving forward.

Even if I knew how the world would end...

[Setting: Still in Ingram]

Machina: ...It's over at last, Player. We won. Rem: Peace has finally come to the world... Rem: Our days of fighting have finally reached their end...! Machina: Yeah. ...But, if we aren't fighting anymore, what will we do? Lean: There are a lotta things I wanna do. For example... There are many various things I want to research. Rem: Huhu. I'd expect no less from a researcher! But is it related to magic or machine weaponry? Lean: That's just more research for the sake of war, isn't it? There are many things around us we don't know about. Lean: "How was this star formed?" "What's out there beyond this continent?" Those kinds of things. Lean: There's a lot more I wanna know. Rem: Wow... That's amazing. That sounds really interesting! Machina: I see. There's still a whole mountain of things we don't know... Machina: It might be nice to learn about those things, too. Right, Player? Rem: Umm, in that case, I want to take my time getting to know the country of Milites, the place where Lean grew up! Lean: Oh, that would be nice! Please, come visit. I'll show you around! Machina: Sightseeing in Milites... I've never considered it before, but that sounds like it could be fun. Rem: Hey, Player, what would you like to do? >There's a white flash and the sound of thunder. The atmosphere looks a little darker. Rem: Kyaaa!! Lean: Wh-... What was that...?! >The sky turns red, casting everything in a red light.

Qator (over COMM): This is Qator. Lean, respond! Lean: Brigadier General! Hey, what the hell's going on?! Isn't the fighting over?! Qator (over COMM): It's unclear! However, I can tell you that there's an overwhelming number of soldiers approaching our capital!

Sice (over COMM): Emergency transmission! Can you hear me, Akademeia? This is Sice! Sice (over COMM): Reporting an attack by unidentified troops in Concordia! Their numbers are unknown. There's too many for me to count! Machina: Sice! No way... It's the same over there, too!?

Trey (over COMM): The Militesi allied army has been wiped out by the mysterious enemy! We're also being attacked. At this rate-- >Trey's transmission is cut off. Machina: Wh... What is this...?! What's going on?!

[Setting: Terrace]

Arecia: It looks like the cadets have begun the final battle for their survival. Arecia: Struggle until you can struggle no more. And then, this time... Rise up to Agito. Miyu: Mother. Isn't it a little too early for Tempus Finis to be awoken? Arecia: There should be enough vessels to withstand the trials. Arecia: The battle between humans is over. If Agito still doesn't appear, then my experiment will end here. Arecia: This time, the world will end. Miyu: Not the Spiral, but... the world itself? Is this your will as the Mother Creator? Arecia: If an experiment fails no matter how many millions of times it's repeated, then it's time to abandon the experiment itself. Arecia: This might just be that time. Arecia: I wonder if it could be said that a possibility still exists in Orience. Miyu: ...Then, with my own hands, I'll be the one who determines whether Agito was born in the world this time. >The surroundings rumble and it sounds like something is activated. Arecia: ...Indeed, that was your role this time, wasn't it. Rursan l'Cie, the Judge. Arecia: I wonder when exactly you began cooperating with me...?

>Miyu's eyes turn purple and the purple l'Cie brand appears over one of her eyes. Judge Myuria: I believe... in the people who lived with me in this world. Arecia: Is that so? I hope the souls of the humans in this cycle can fulfill those expectations.

[sneezingpotatoes]

Okay so...

I don’t even know what to call this, but read it if you want xD I guess it’s a cute ((With mess and contagion)) short story? xDDDD

It's the third time he's been late to work this week and you're starting to get irritated. You know that it wasn’t unusual for him to be late for work, but the third time in a row is one too many. You're tired of covering for him and lying to your boss about his possible whereabouts, so you swear to yourself up and down that you're going to rip him a new one as soon as he walks through that door.

An hour passes and you think to yourself, "Huh, that's strange. He's never been this late before..." He hasn't answered your 3 missed calls and your heart sinks, becoming slightly worried as to what could've happened to him. He would always tell you if he wouldn't be at work, so for him to be a no-show was startling.

You somehow manage to get through another boring hour of work, feeling deprived without him being there to make the time enjoyably fly by, but you can't stop thinking about him. Why won't he answer your calls?

As if on cue, you quickly get pulled away from your own thoughts as you watch him sluggishly walk into the office and take a seat at the computer directly in front of you. You can tell that something is definitely off with him, as you watch him bury a handful of coughs into the maroon scarf that was draped around his neck.

"Well, that doesn't sound too good." You say with concern as you toss out all of the anger you once had. He looks at you with tired eyes, face still covered in his scarf.

"Yeah, I've been having this damn cough for a few days already." He confesses to you, sinking down into himself as if he were ashamed to admit it. "But it's really buggin' today." He did this a lot, seeing how it was hard to lie to you. No matter how hard he tried, nothing could get past you. 

You sigh, hearing how scratchy his voice sounds. You feel bad for him. You hate the universe for choosing him to get sick instead of you. If you could choose to take the sickness away from him, you would've snatched it in a heart beat.

Before you can even express your sympathy to him, your boss spots your sick co-worker and rips him a new one for you, before telling you both to get to work. You both share one final glance before returning to your computers.

It had been a fun half hour, of course, with him discreetly sending you funny cat memes to distract you from your actual work every once in a while. You giggle to yourself in anticipation of the next meme you had received that was waiting in your inbox.

Just as you go to open the message, your ears shift as you hear a faint inhale across from you. Another inhale, sharper this time, catches your attention. You peer over your monitor and see him frozen, patiently waiting. His eyebrows were furrowed, head slightly tilted upward, his hands were somewhat cupped but not close to his face, as if he were going to dive into his hands rather than bring them to his face. His mouth was still covered with his scarf, but you’d imagined that his lips were parted, seeing how the itch didn't seem entirely strong enough to actually cause too much change. It was a weak, hazy itch that made him freeze, absently waiting to see if he even needed to sneeze or not. He sniffles, fully, sounding so gurgly and obviously wet that it seemed to bounce off of the office walls and make a few of your fellow co-workers cringe and give him the side eye. 

“Hhah...” 

A soft pant is released, sounding somewhat muffled from his thick scarf. 

“H-haaHh...!”

Another, more agitated and slightly more audible release is heard as his stature tenses up, tilting his head further back with a deeper crease in his brow. You can tell that he’s getting annoyed with his pestering nose, as he groans with an irritated sigh after the sneeze doesn’t come. You watch him paw at his itchy nose for a second before speaking. 

“Are you alright?” He sluggishly leans to the side of his monitor to meet your concerned gaze. You can tell that the faint need to sneeze is still present within him, as his eyelids were still fighting to stay fully upright, and you could see his moistened, pink nostrils fidgeting above his scarf.

“N-need to-- sd-sdee-eze...” He pathetically stutters, not able to contain his uneven breaths from disrupting his speech. You give him a sincere glare before reaching behind you to grab the box of tissues on the desk. He slowly reaches to grab a few of the tissues and doesn’t hesitate to honk into them. It was loud, and messy sounding. It even makes you cringe internally, feeling like no matter how thick the tissues were, you were still getting infected. But you didn’t mind. 

An abrupt hitch escapes him, and causes him to nearly jolt from the burning sensation. Instantly, he turns to his side and releases an intense, muffled explosion over his right shoulder. 

“HhuH-- hH’AAHTSSCHhm!!”

He remains hunched over, deciding on whether another sneeze were coming and allowing his dark and now disheveled bangs to hang and cover his face. His neighboring co-worker stares at him, feeling disgusted that he sneezed openly in his direction, but still blessed him, along with all of the other nearby co-workers. He was lucky that his scarf was covering his mouth, because if it weren’t, he was sure he would’ve sprayed him. 

After a moment, he releases a breathy and absent sounding ‘thagnks’ before sitting back up properly at his computer. You watch him hazily sway back and forth as if he were dizzy in his seat from the wet sniffling he couldn’t seem to stop doing. His eyes slowly came to a close and he froze again with his cupped hands in front of him.

“Hhaah... Hh-haAhH... Hih--!...’AAHKSSCHSHIfm!!” 

This time, he jerked forwards into his hands, pressing his scarf closer to his face on impact. He coughed a few times into his scarf, ignoring the blessings from all directions. You watch him shake his head as he sits up, signaling that he didn’t think he was finished just yet. As if to prove it, an agitated hitch escapes from him and he tenses up again, but this time he remains frozen. Shallow breaths escape him as he tries to coax the sneeze out the best way he knew how.

“Blow your nose.” You say, sliding the box of tissues onto his desk. “That might help.” He slowly nods and breaks out of his own trance with a wet sniffle as he grabs a few tissues.

“Da’bit! By dose i-is soohh--hHih...!” He pauses, glassy eyes staring blankly and expectantly. “S... so t-ti-- G’EHSSCSSH’oofm!!! Hih...’yiEGSSSCHOohfm!! T-ti’gly, guhh.” You watch his scarf bounce with each sneeze as he dove forward, nearly slamming his head against his keyboard, sneezing openly and letting his scarf do the covering. He groans from discomfort and exhaustion into his scarf as he prepares to blow his nose. You bless him, along with a few less employees this time, but he gives you a fatigued smile in thanks after a handful of coughs and well needed nose blows. 

“Feel better now?” You ask with a wry smile, eyes fixated on his disheveled hair. He glares at you with the look of ‘Are you kidding me?’

“Hell no! Feel like a pile of horse shit.” As if to confirm it, he openly releases a few dry coughs, being lucky that his scarf was wrapped around his neck to catch them. 

“Well fix your hair, at least. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that’s what I’m looking at on the top of your head.”

“... Fuck you, asshole.” He mutters through a short chuckle as he runs a hand through his dark locks. “Happy now? Jeez.”

You give him a light chuckle and nod, knowing that the both of you were just joking around and finding light in the situation. Shortly after, you hear him release a long sigh, and you can tell that he truly is feeling horrible underneath the smiles and jokes. He needed to get home and rest before this turned into something worse than it already had.

A few more hours pass, and you’re a little over halfway through your work day. You can tell that he was sounding worse and worse by the hour. He was sneezing and coughing a lot more than when he had first arrived, and they were sounding more forceful and powerful now, like they were tearing right out of him without an option. He had to cough after each sneeze now, seeing how they scrapped the back of his throat, making it more sore each time. You’ve been noticing that every time he coughs and sneezes, he has to chase it down with a wince from the pain in his throat, and he despises doing so because he knows he’ll be in pain every time it happens. 

Every once in a while, you’d take a peek at him from the side of your monitor to check on him. He looked ‘out of it’ each time you leaned your head over. His scarf was no longer covering his mouth, allowing you to see the moistness of his upper lip and the light flush all over his feverish cheeks. He looked like a zombie if you’d ever seen one. He was somewhat slumped, glassy eyes lifelessly staring at his monitor,

“HH’AAHGTSSSCH!!” 

You jolt in your seat from the twentieth sneeze, it felt like. Who knows, you had stopped counting. His chesty coughs make even you clear your throat in discomfort. Before you can even attempt to bless him, he’s already leaned back in his seat, head tilted upward towards the ceiling with a few dry hitches in their wake. 

 “HhUH-Uh... Ahh... Hh’AAHGSSCHSHIIH!!” 

You watch him jerk forward and lazily aim the sneeze into his own lap, dazed at the light mist escaping from his mouth that gently coated his desk and computer keyboard. His scarf had gradually fallen down from his mouth throughout the workday, so you weren’t surprised that his scarf wasn’t there to catch his sneezes anymore. He coughs again, barely catching it into a cupped fist with furrowed brows, indicating this clear discomfort. At this point, you feel like you've had enough and that it was time to pull the plug. You send your boss an email, informing him that you will be leaving early to take your sick companion home.

Surprisingly, the drive to your house is enjoyable. He explains to you that he was already debating on going home before they had left. He admits that he didn't want to leave you alone at work and that he would've pushed through long enough until work was over, but he was definitely happy that he didn't have to be in that hellhole any longer. You give a relieved chuckle, feeling warm inside from how thoughtful he was, even though this cold was clearly kicking his ass.

You arrive at your house and he doesn't fight you when you tell him to lean up against you so that you can escort him onto the couch. Once his sits down, you help him remove his coat and scarf, allowing him to get completely comfortable.

"Thagks for letti'g be crash here for the dight." He croaks, releasing a chesty cough over his shoulder. You can tell that the cold winter air has played a huge role as the catalyst that broke the dam in his sinuses, seeing how his nose was already starting to leak like a faucet and the congestion was present in his speech.

"Don't worry about it." You brush off his thanks since you feel that it wasn't necessary. You two were close friends; it was obvious that he would've done the same for you. "Just let me know if you need anything. I'll be here."

He nods and gives you a comforting smile before he lies down, ready to retire for the night. You figured that he wasn't ready for you to play doctor just yet, seeing how his eyes were already closed and a faint snore was beginning to develop. He must've been very tired, you think to yourself before grabbing a fresh blanket from the closet and draping it over his exhausted body.

It had been about an hour since he had fallen asleep. You were happy. Happy that he was even at your house in the first place. You'd occasionally walk into the front room and loom over the couch to check up on him, but he seemed fine for the time being, so you had decided to seize the opportunity to catch up on your reading. You couldn't even finish a single chapter before a loud sneeze echos all the way into your bedroom. The surprising loudness of the sneeze makes you jolt up and you return into the living room, only to catch him in the middle of another sneeze.

"HH'AAGTSSCHIISH!!!"

Using both hands to hold onto the couch as he dips forward, he allows himself to openly release the loud sneeze and it's aimed at the floor. A light mist of sick disperses into the air, coating his legs and a little bit of the carpet beneath him. A light cough escapes him before a struggling hitch forces him upright, only for him to snap at the waist once again, head nearly hitting his own knees.

"HhUhn... 'EEGSSCHHIUUH!!!"

You watch the new batch of mist fade away just as fast as it had come, as he slowly sits back up after a bout of coughing openly onto the thigh portion of his jeans, only for him to turn into a sniffly mess. He barely even notices you through his rapid rabbit-like sniffles as you grab a seat in the lounge chair beside him with a box of tissues in hand.

"F-fuhgk dihhs dahb c-co'd--hhUH!!" He barely manages to say before he abruptly takes in an airy hitch that irritates his throat and forces a mutated cough-sneeze to tear out of him and spew onto the coffee table this time. He freezes still bent over for a moment, hazy eyes staring blankly in front of him, trying to determine whether or not it was safe to relax or to tense up again for another sneeze.

He was like an adult child, needing his mother to aid and care for him in your eyes. You watched as he sat there lifelessly, as if he had mentally checked out and was just a sitting corpse. His nose was way beyond leaking at this point now. The sick that had been piling up on his upper lip was now becoming overcrowded and was forced to drip down to his actual lips and chin. You were afraid that if he sneezed again, it would be a whole lot more than just mist that would fly out of his body. His body flinches from the muted hitch and you take this as your cue to prepare for the worst.

"Haaahh-hihh..."

He hitches again, audibly this time, as you quickly grab three more tissues. You jumble them up in your hand, not certain of if you would have enough time to properly lay them on top of each other. Almost instantly, you shove the handful of tissues over his mouth and nose, just in time as he dips forward, muffling the forceful double into your palm.

"Hh'aAHHSSChmf-'EGSSChmff!!!"

You flinch as a reflex from the sudden movement, but maintain your hold on the tissues as you feel the rush of warm air and slight dampness that cuts through the barrier of tissues. He stays bent over, keeping his head buried into your handful of tissues, trying to recover from the sneezes before coughing abruptly into them.

Your heart starts racing as you realize what you had done. What was he going to think about this? Would he think that you're weird or crazy for catching his sneezes like that? Your mind tells you to instantly pull your hand away and to apologize, but before you can even make a move, he sluggishly grabs the tissues from your hand and gurgles into them a few good times before muttering a congested 'thagks' through the soggy tissues. You swallow down the dry lump in your throat before explaining to him that you noticed how runny his nose was and figured he could use a little help. Surprisingly, he didn't think much of it.

"Dhis is why I hate co'ds." He grunts thickly as he rubs a knuckle underneath his now red-rimmed nostrils. "I ged so s-sdeezy a'd I... Hhuh...I c-caah'd... Hehh..." He stops mid sentence, breath gently hitching against his will. His body freezes completely for a moment, waiting. Waiting. Waiting, until... --Gah, nothing. "Shid. Losd id." He congestedly cursed, snuffling thickly into the palm of his hand.

You hand him a few more tissues, hoping this would help clear up some of his congestion. Whether he wanted you to or not, you felt it was time to play doctor and give him the aid he deserved. You vanish into the bathroom to retrieve the proper medicine and a handful of cough drops for him. As soon as you return, he scarfs down the syrup without hesitation, desperate for some type of relief to his madness. You can see that he looks overly exhausted and that he was already ready to go back to bed, but you force him awake and say that he needs to at least drink a cup of hot tea to sooth his throat before he goes down for the night. With little fuss, he agrees, nearly scarfing the mug of tea down as well so that he could instantly fall asleep right after.

The past couple of days had been hard on both of you. If you can recall, you think you've only had 10 hours of sleep in total the last couple days. It was hard to get the proper sleep without getting woken up by a cough, sneeze or simply him asking for his aid. You couldn't sleep during the day either, seeing how deep down inside you felt that it was your duty to stay awake, just in case he needed you, you wanted to be there.

Your days were exhausting as well because you hadn't realized how unsanitary and messy he was. He couldn't help it though, right? He was too sick and miserable to care about being sanitary and whatnot. You found yourself always picking up used balled up tissues, throwing away empty tissue boxes, wiping down counters and tables that had been sneezed or coughed on, cooking and making tea; Just thinking about it all made your head spin. Maybe you were in way over your head? All you wanted to do was take a day off and sleep.

"Huh'kish!"

Apparently your body was in agreement as well. The sudden sneeze catches you off guard and jerks you forward slightly, forcing you to release an open sneeze. You blink a couple times before quickly raising a cupped hand to catch the next 'Kissch!' that makes you flinch, followed by another 'ISSCh!' in it's wake. The last sneeze was a bit louder than the last two, and you're sure that he heard it.

"Bless." He barely croaks. His voice is gruff and an octave deeper than you last remembered. You could hear how thick his congestion was just by that one word. "Did I ged you sigk?" You wince, wishing that he would just stop talking and save his voice because you could barely understand him through the thick wall of congestion and dry, airy sound of his voice.

"No. No! It's fine-- I'm fine." You say, frazzled. Even if he did get you sick, you didn't want him to worry about you being sick. He didn't need to worry about anything. All he needed to do was get better. That's his only job. If anything, he needed more attention than you right now anyway.

"Bull. Shid. I 'dow you. You odly sdeeze whed you ged sigk." You pause for a moment. He was right, but you didn't want him to know that.

"Well, even if I am sick, you need more attention than I do right now." You imply, trying your hardest to bite back the itch in your throat. It had been a long time since you were last sick, and everytime you do get sick, its like a new experience since you rarely get sick.

"You've helb'd be edough. Go... G-go gehh... Hhehh..." The hitch slides out of him, as he's used to it by now. He was tired of always feeling the need to sneeze but have some sort of roulette everytime it was actually time for him to sneeze. He never knew if he were actually going to sneeze until the build up actually finished, so why bother stopping everything when it could be a possible let down, anyway? "G-ged sobe rehh-hhUH...!"

"HIH'KSch! 'KSht...! Ih'Kshn!" You miss the first sneeze, but you're able to catch the last two with back of your hand, having a quick twitch with each sneeze. You grab a few tissues for yourself this time, trying to expel whatever irritant that's aggravating your sinuses out.

"B-blehhss--hHAh..! HH'AAGHSSCHII!!"

He tries his best to bless you but gets interrupted by his own forceful sneeze that sends him dipping forward, releasing a heavy mist onto the coffee table. He can't even collect himself before he's starts hitching again. You don't even care anymore at his point, seeing how the damage had already been done. You both were in it together now.

"Hhaah... AahHh... hh-hHaAh..!"

He's leaned back deep into the couch now, head tilted all the way up with his jaw absently slacked all the way open. You knew this must've been torture for him. It seemed like everytime he needed to sneeze it was a battle.

"Hhih... HheHH--!" He waits, feeling the itch tickle his nostrils to no end. Silence. "Shid! Id a-always geh'SSCHOo-'Gsscho!!" Instantly he coughs, openly at the floor, trying his hardest to recover from the surprising double.

You finally decide to sit beside him, seeing how there was no point in trying to avoid the inevitable, and you'd rather be next to someone feeling the same way as you. You know what they say, misery loves company.

You grab the box of tissues and offer him some, and he grabs a few, before taking a few for yourself. You never knew when you were going to need them, but it felt comforting to have them in your hand at the ready. After he finishes blowing his nose and tossing the used tissues aside, he lies down on the couch, placing his legs behind your back and leaving room for you to join him you choose to. And of course, you knowingly decide to cuddle up against him so that you both could fit on the couch together. It was definitely a tight squeeze, but you were assuming he was using this as an excuse to wrap his arms around you so that you didn't slide off of the couch and to provide more room for you. You smile, being happy to be so close to him and have him embrace you. You felt safe, warm and protected. The perfect environment for you to slowly doze off. Oddly enough, you fall asleep first and he uses this opportunity to rest his chin in your hair and kiss you goodnight.

The end. :))

[radianhazbin]

Not all demons have a rainbow in their heart

Authors note: This story is very graphic, and may not be suitable for every reader. Also, this was my first fanfiction, that I’ve ever wrote on Hazbin Hotel, and it was the first fanfic that I’ve wrote since around 2 years. Even I don’t like it that much. But right now, I sadly have no time and/or ideas to write a new one. But soon, I will be writing all over the place again :)

Also also, this story doesn’t stay true to the HH lore to the end. So because of that one little detail, I will say it’s an AU, even if it’s just that one single thing that’s changed.

So, after all of this, I hope you will still enjoy this fanfiction!

---------------------------- 

It was early morning in the Hazbin Hotel. It has been two days after the defeat of Sir Pentious, and since the Radio Demon, Alastor, moved into the Hotel. Charlie woke up to the red sunbeams that shined through the window of her room. She rolled around, and noticed, that Vaggie was still asleep next to her. She gave her a kiss on the cheek, rolled around to the other side of the bed, and slowly stood up. One stretch later, the young princess found herself in the bathroom of the small apartment. After washing her face, and getting ready for the day, she smiled to her reflection in the mirror.

“Maybe today. Hell is a big place after all. Someone will check in eventually.” She said to herself with confidence.

She opened the door to the corridor, looked back one last time, to see her girlfriend, still asleep. Charlie smiled, and silently closed the door behind her. She walked down the small, cranky staircase into the Lobby of the Building. She stepped into the large room, and looked around. Husk was blackout drunk at the bar, and lied unconscious on the counter, with a bottle of cheap booze in his right hand. Angel was asleep on the couch, with one half of his feminine body hanging from the side. And Niffty was… Somewhere. Charlie had no idea where she could be sleeping. Or even if she needed any sleep at all. The only other figure that was missing was the Radio Demon Alastor. But to be honest, the young girl was quite relieved to not see him anywhere.

“Goooood morning darling!” Screamed a voice from behind her. It sounded like an old timey radio. She turned around in an instant, and saw the gigantic grin of the Radio Demon, just inches away from her face. She stepped back before answering with a slightly shaky voice: “Good morning Alastor. How was your sleep?” She asked while turning around again, to open the front door.

“Ohhh, just magnificent! Thank you, young lady!” he jumped in front of her, stopping Charlie in her way, “And how was your rest?” He asked her, while bowing down, to be on eye level with the girl.

“Good, thanks”, she replied, while carefully stepping around him.

She made her way to the front door, while Alastor still tried to talk to her.

“Are you awaiting any guests, my darling? Or will this be another boring day?” he interrogated her.

“You still don’t believe in me, do you?”

“Well, of course not! Once a demon, always a demon!”

Charlie left out a disappointed sigh.

“Not all demons are inherently evil. And I will prove it to you soon enough!” she called out.

“Well that’s what I call passionate! Although I would call it naive too! Maybe even stupid!”

“You can think what you want.” Charlie muttered to herself.

Soon she stood in front of the big entrance to the Hazbin Hotel. She took the silver keys out of her pocket, and unlocked the door. The heavy glass door slowly swung open, and from one moment to the other, a slim and shady creature stood before her. It was around twice as high as Charlie, and wore a long, oak brown coat, that hid almost its entire body. She slowly looked up, flying past his black, shimmering shoes, the long coat that was buttoned up just above his waist, and up to his chest, where she could make out a white shirt beneath the mantle. And finally, she saw his head. A human like face with pale skin. His hair was tousled, and the right half of his face was covered in bandages. He looked down at Charlie.

“You’re the girl from the news.” He said with a very monotone, and deep voice.

“Y-Yes.” Charlie muttered out.

“I heard demons can get.. Rehabilitated in this place. A chance to leave hell.”

“Y-You heard right!” she said enthusiastically.

“Can I check in?”

“O-Of course you can!” she screamed out. Her face, went from scared to happy within seconds.

She quickly stepped around him, and threw her arm around the figure. 

“Husk! Wake up you drunk idiot! We've got a guest!” she screamed across the room, to wake up the drunk demon. 

“Huh? What the fuck?”, he mumbled, with his gritty and rough voice, while slowly lifting his head up from the counter. 

“Hmm, don’t scream like that. Some people are trying to sleep.”, Angel complained while rolling around, turning his face away from the room and into the soft pillow of the couch.

“Well, that’s something new. A customer!”, screamed Alastor out in surprise. 

“He’s a guest.” Charlie corrected him. “Our first guest of many more to come! I’m so happy!” She let go of the man, and danced a quick pirouette in the middle of the room, never losing her grin, that went from ear to ear. 

“I saw your little song in the news, but I assumed you would just play a role. Are you always this disgustingly happy?”, the man asked grim.

“Uhm, yes! I mean,” she hesitated, and played with her fingers, while she tried to think of something to say. “You’re our first guest! I’m just a little nervous.”

With a grunt, the man proceeded to walk to the counter, where Husk was slowly sobering up. 

“Urgh, name?”, the still drunk demon asked.

“Caleb.”, the tall man answered.

“Here. Room 104. Welcome to the…” Husk began to think. Snipping his fingers, to desperately find the name of the hotel he was working at.

“To the Hazbin Hotel!”, Charlie screamed and swung her arms wide open. 

“What’s with the screaming down here?”, a female voice questioned into the lobby. It was Vaggie, who was coming downstairs, while rubbing her right eye.

“Vaggie! You wouldn’t believe it!”, Charlie jumped around her girlfriend, grabbing her by the waist, and pointing with an open hand towards the first guest of the Hazbin Hotel.

“I introduce you to Caleb!” She turned her head and closed the gap between hers and Vaggie’s eyes. “Isn’t this awesome?!” she asked, still overly excited. 

“I guess so.”, Vaggie turned away, and slowly moved towards the big figure. 

“So, Caleb. What brought you to the Hotel?”, she asked while crossing her arms in front of her chest.

Caleb, who didn’t even looked at her yet, replied: “Salvation, I guess. I’m tired of this shit down here. The screaming, the death, the suffering. So I thought that I maybe give it a-”, he turned his head, and stopped in the middle of his sentence, when he saw Vaggie for the first time. “try.”, he finished.

“Is something wrong?”, she curiously asked.

“No. You just-”, a short pause, “reminded me of someone.”

“Really? And who would that be?”, she interrogated him.

“Nobody you would know. I think.”, he said, while undressing his coat, and hanging it onto the dresser.

“Well, maybe we should get to know each other better?”, Charlie proposed, “So Caleb, my name is Charlie, aaaaaand, I run this whole thing. This is my girlfriend Vaggie-”, she pointed at the girl, who still had her arms crossed, and looked at Caleb with an disgusted face, “This is Husk. He’s our bartender and welcomer.”, Charlie lost energy in the last word, when she saw, that Husk was unconscious again. “Anyway! We also have Niffty, who I didn’t find anywhere yet, but is around here somewhere! She’s our housekeeping, so to speak, hehe.”, Charlie let out a nervous laughter. “And this-”, she moved her hand in Alastor’s direction, “Is Alastor!”

“The fucking Radio Demon?!”, Caleb screamed out in fear, “Are you fucking kidding me, girl?!”

“Ohh, don’t worry my big friend! I have nothing evil in mind! I just like to watch Charlie’s dreams getting destroyed and eaten by an vicious demon!”, Alastor screamed out happily.

“Interesting choice of words, Alastor.”, Angel pointed out, while slowly getting up from the couch.

“Uhm, and this is Angel dust he’s our… Uhm-”, Charlie tried to find the right words. “Hotel whore.”, he finished her sentence, “For just a little amount of money, I can make you feel, real good.”, he whispered, while rubbing against Caleb’s shoulder. 

“Uhm, yeah, no. Thank you, kiddo.”, he refused. 

“Your loss.”, Angel said smiling, while going back to his couch.

“So. Are we getting started? And if so, how exactly?”, Caleb questioned Charlie.

“Well.. We can start right now! If you want to.”, she explained

“Great.”, he replied.

Charlie, moved him upstairs, into a small room, where they sat down at a small table. She moved an old, dusty, armchair onto one end of the wooden table, and a clunky wooden chair onto the other. Charlie sat down on the wooden chair, Caleb settled in the armchair. 

“So, why are you in hell?”, Charlie asked.

“I don’t know. I guess because I killed some girls back in the 60’s. You know, drove next to them, at night, offered a lift, then kidnapped them, took them home, killed and ate them.”, he explained.

Charlie cramped up in her seat, still a smile on her face, but visually scared. 

Caleb continued: “I never raped them tho. I’m not that kind of sicko. Just a clean kill. Fine, maybe a little bit of torture here and there, you know? But only on the ones I didn’t like. And then the usual. Cutting them open, sometimes they were still alive at that point!”, he let out a small laughter, “Ahh, but then I would exempt the body, cut out the brain, ate the heart raw, and the rest I kept in my freezer for later. But the heart… Yeah.. You have to eat that raw.”, he drifted away, “That taste of someone who lived sheer moments ago is just… Incredible.”, he proceeded to explain. “But I’m getting off topic. Well, I didn’t really have any use for the bones, so I usually just hid them in the woods. The skin made really good clothing, and the rest was all edible. But then one day… Some bitch ratted me out. She could escape and tell the cops, before I could finish her off. I got cocky and didn’t torture her enough. I mean, I cut out her left eye, and debreasted her.. But the blood loss wasn’t enough. She managed to run away, and tell the cops. And what did I do? Huh. Followed her, and rammed my hatched into her back, right in front of the officer hahaha! Well, he shot me 3 times in the head.”, he finished.

Charlie still scared and cramped up in her chair, slowly calmed down, and sat down normally again. 

“A-Alright… Hehe, uhm…”, she struggled to find her words, “How did you feel, when you commited the murders?”

“I felt alive. I loved it. And I would do it again any time!”

“Oh… Okay. I Didn’t expect that answer, but… We will get there! We will make you a good boy again! Don’t worry! You will be out of here, in no time!”, she assured him with a smile.

The night came quickly. Charlie trained the entire day with Caleb. She tried to give him something else to eat, trained him to be nice to people, and to cook something else than human flesh. But when the night came, and the hotel went to bed, it showed, that maybe, not in every demon is a rainbow in their heart.

The door slowly opened, and what followed where big, clunky steps. Charlie was sleeping tightly, next to her girlfriend, and didn’t notice, the large shadow, that lied itself over the two. The creature stepped around the bed, onto Vaggie’s side.

“You fucking bitch.”, he whispered to himself.

Vaggie slowly opened her eyes, and saw the man standing in front of her.

“Caleb? What’s going on?”, she asked, while rubbing her right eye. 

He didn’t say a word. He instantly jumped down, and pressed a tissue with a substance into her face. She resisted for a few seconds, before falling unconscious. Caleb looked onto the other side of the bed, and saw, that Charlie was still sleeping. He looked down at Vaggie again.

“Now you’ll get, what you fucking deserve.”

he dragged her out of the bed, downstairs, deeper into the basement of the hotel. He tied her up, and threw her on the ground. She woke up just seconds after. 

“Huh? What the fuck? Where am I?!”, she screamed at the man.

“You thought I forgot? You fucking bitch brought me down here!”, he screamed, while kicking into Vaggie’s stomach. She coughed in pain.

“What the fuck are you talking about, asshole?!”, she yelled at him.

“What do you think, woman?!”, he grabbed the bandages on his head, and ripped them right off, revealing three holes in his skull. “You did this to me!”, he accused her.

Then it slowly came back to Vaggie. Why she was down here in hell. She remembered the face. She remembered the pain she felt, when her eye got removed from her skull. When her breasts were ripped off without a warning, and the pain she felt, when the hatched slammed into her back.

“You…”, she whimpered. “You son of a bitch! You’re him! You’re this asshole who killed me!”, she tried to jump up, and tackle him, but without any luck. She only managed to get onto her knees, what Caleb used to kick her right in the face. 

She fell to the ground again, with a bleeding nose, and tears in her eyes. Then she heard the unseathing of knife.

“Get the fuck away from me!”, Vaggie crawled back slowly, but soon hit a damp wall.

“No running away this time, bitch.”, he stated, and shortly after, he jumped down.

He stabbed her belly numerous times, over and over again. Blood was spilling out of every hole in the women's body. She screamed for help, but nobody came. She was going to die in this basement. It was going dark, very dark. She saw the face of Charlie in front of her, smiling, being happy. 

“I love you Charlie.”, she said with her last dying breath, before she closed her eyes. Forever.

Caleb stepped up, and examined his work. Vaggie’s body lied before him. Covered in blood. He bowed down, and dragged the body back into the middle of the room. He untied her arms and legs, and began to cut open her stomach, when he heard a voice from the outside. 

“Vaggie? Where are you? Are you okay?”

It was Charlie. But the man had no time to think of a plan. His clothes were drenched in the blood of the young women too, and before he could really think of anything, the basement door swung open.

“Vaggie? I heard screaming and-”, she abruptly stopped when she walked into the scene of the murder. 

“V-Vaggie?”, she asked out of breath. Tears began to form within her eyes, when she walked towards the body, with shaking legs.

“V-Vaggie? Please, answer?”, she whimpered out. Then she looked at the person beside the body.

“C-Caleb… What have you? Why have you? I can’t… Wha….”, she couldn’t find any words to describe what was going on inside her head. She fell to her knees, and soon, the tears, began to fall. She was crying and sobbing, with a hanging head, while Caleb slowly stood up.

“Well. I guess you were wrong, hehe. Some demons don’t have a Rainbow in their heart. You’re truly pathetic. Thinking this stupid hotel would change anyone. I wasted my entire day, trying to win your trust. Damn, I’m almost as stupid as you are!”, he laughed out loud.

“You didn’t… This isn’t happening…”, Charlie cried.

“Oh, you better believe it. What did you expect? We’re in hell! This relationship wouldn’t have worked anyway. You should thank me!”, he pointed out.

“You son of a bitch.”, she whispered.

“Uhm, I’m sorry, what now?”

“You son of a bitch! I will fucking kill you!!!”, She jumped up, and ran with full speed at the gigantic monster. He readied up his knife, trusting, that in her blind anger, she would just ran straight into it. But when she closed in, the knife just shattered on her skin. The shards of the blade rained down on the ground, when in the next moment, he felt an unbelievable pain in his face. He flew across the room, and slammed against the rear wall. Caleb shook his head, wondering what just happened. Then he turned around and saw Charlie running towards him. She jumped on top of him, and punched him in the face, over and over and over again, until his head resembled nothing more than a mashed potato. 

Charlie let her head sink down again. She looked at her hand, which was dripping with the blood of the murderer of her girlfriend. 

“You son of a bitch.”, she whispered to his body.

She slowly got up, turned around and carefully walked towards Vaggie’s body. 

“V-Vaggie?”

No reaction.

“It’s me, Charlie. We can go back to sleep now.”, she whimpered under tears, but still trying to set up a smile.

“Come on, wake up. We can even have some fun if you want to.”

Charlie stood next to the open body of her girlfriend. She kneeled down, and lifted her head up from the ground and rested it on her thighs. Charlie slowly stroke through the hair of her lost love. 

“I love you, Vaggie.”, she cried, “I’m sorry. It was my fault.”, she said, while her tears fell down to Vaggie’s face, rolled down her cheeks, and dripped off into the puddle of blood that had collected on the ground.

She failed. She was wrong. Because,

Not all demons, have a Rainbow in their Heart.

---------------------------------

So, now I want to say thanks to @nightsoulvixen for hosting Varlie week! I enjoyed it quite a bit, and hope, that something like this will be hosted again in the near future! :)

[thehoneyedhufflepuff]

So first of all, BTL chapter 17 was amazing! (Like they all are!! 💜) What I wanted to ask-did getting the chapter out there feel like it broke through some of your writer’s block? Or do you think the next chapter might be another tough one? I’ll read BTL even if updates take years, but how are you feeling about the upcoming chapters? I’m struggling with writers block in some of my fics too so I completely get it, it’s tough to work when the brain has other plans!

Thank you so much re: chapter 17. It’s always a joy to know that y’all liked the new chapter. And God, I sure as hell hope updates don’t take literal years, but I was literally driving home the other day & I had the thought, How long will it take me to finish this story? & then I got tired when I thought about the potential answers, lmao. But that’s very kind, thank you.

The thing with this fic (in a very small nutshell) is this: I barely know what’s happening before I write the chapter. I have emotional plot points I want to hit, & I’m starting to drive us towards the climax, but I have no idea how long it’ll take to get there. Literally all I knew for last chapter was: get to Hampshire, Baz & Dev & Niall have some sort of Christmas Eve tradition & I think it’s outdoors, Niall has feelings, Baz totally kidnapped Simon’s sweater. Probably wanks.

...You can see how this might present a challenge while actually writing lol. I have the climactic scene as a mood in my head, & a little bit of dialogue already written down, & a general idea of how to get there...but IDK what the meat of the chapters will be, if that makes sense? I’ve got the bones—general plot points—& the blood—the emotion—but that doesn’t make a whole living thing....if that made any sense at all.

That was my very wordy way of saying that I barely have a clue what’s going on next chapter besides Baz & Niall talk, Baz & Simon text, & probably wanks. These things come to me as I write. I was very stuck last chapter once I got Baz to Hampshire, for example, & the chapter didn’t start to really flow until I had Mordelia call out Baz’s hickey. Which is a weird catalyst but they almost always are. This is my lengthy way of saying I’m not a terribly organized writer.

Which is to say...I’m not sure how next chapter is going to go! I have a bit of dialogue started that picks up right from the end of 17, but that’s it. I’m taking a few days away from it at the moment. I’m drawing, & mildly stressing about the COBB, & also trying to brainstorm a bit for the fic I’m writing for the @goldendayszine raffle. BTL updates might be more like monthly instead of biweekly (which is sort of what they used to be, before the holidays & the writer’s block happened) because I’ll also be working on my bang fic here pretty soon...

Honestly, though, I think the block I was having was mostly due to 1. Burning myself out during the countdown (that was SO stressful, & I still can’t believe I managed it) & 2. A bunch of personal shit that came up last month & early this month, most of which has passed or is currently in the process of passing. I just was not in the mental state to write for a bit with everything that was going on. Now that those stressors are out of the way, I expect writing will be easier.

Wow I have rambled but verbosity is pretty much my brand at this point so I am not surprised. Sorry to hear about your block as well. I think my best advice is that sometimes we literally just need to rest in order to produce later. Mr HH had me watching Parks & Rec with him a few weeks ago & we watched the episode where Leslie is freaking out because she has no ideas & then Ron locks her in a bedroom & makes her sleep, & then she wakes up with a bunch of ideas—that spoke to me lmao. And I keep relaying this story to everyone who tells me they have writer’s block because it’s just...so valid. ALSO give yourself grace. I didn’t stand a chance of writing while I was stressing about the fact that I wasn’t writing. I tried to let go of that, & once I took the pressure off the block lifted much faster.

ANYWAY lol thank you so much for the compliments; they always mean a lot to me. Here’s to wishing the both of us luck in our writing endeavors. 💜

[hillyans]

Characters: Pey’j

This post will be updated when new information comes out.

Species: Hybrid (pig/human)

Born: 2385 (age ?? in BGE2, age 50 in BGE1)

Gender: Male

Shares DNA with: Unnamed Pey’j clone, Player Character

Occupation: chief cook of the Gada in BGE2, handyman, inventor, and chief of the IRIS Network on Hillys in BGE1

Relationships: Jade (unknown in BGE2, adoptive niece in BGE1) Dakini (captain) Knox (fellow crew member) Shani (fellow crew member) Callum (fellow crew member) Uma (fellow crew member) Geneva (aunt; unseen character)

Status: Alive

In BGE2

Chief Cook and a familiar face to most of you Space Monkeys who know and love Pey’j from the original Beyond Good and Evil! In this prequel, he’s still the beloved-uncle type who believes in tough love and has a penchant for a certain Old-Earth alcohol, which is the not-so-secret ingredient in the dishes he cooks up for the crew.                         - Official Site, 9/27/18

BGE2 Development:

6/12/17 E3 2017 Trailer Breakdown:

Chris: Now, I know I'm not the only one who looked at this and heard:

[Zhou Yuzhu: "Peyjin."]

Chris: What he said just there, and thought of our beloved Uncle Pey'j from BGE.

Michel: Right! There is a direct connection, you know, so he's very clearly saying "Peyjin" which is kind of a divinity for this kind of hybrid. It's a way to add depth and to show how deep the world can be. And even though those hybrids are created by humans, they have their own religion. Because BGE2 is a prequel to BGE1, we want to add a lot of details about how the world is, those names, "Pey'j"... is it a common name, a divinity name, so... Sometimes you know, in some religions, you give the name of a divinity to a boy or a girl... So all these details are here to make people understand more about the world of BGE.

2/28/18 Instagram: Michel Ancel posts a picture of a bust that looks suspiciously a lot like Pey’j.

6/8/18 Instagram: Ancel teases artwork from E3 2018. “A good friend of mine is back in Beyond Good and Evil 2 . Get prepared for more surprises during the 2018 UbiSoft E3 conference !!!”

6/11/18 E3 2018: Pey’j is shown in the trailer. “And Pey'j is back as the the incorrigible Chief Cook of the Gada.”

6/11/18 E3 2018 Trailer Breakdown (video):

I think last year people sort of thought when they saw Zhou Yuzhu, the big hybrid from the criminal underworld, that perhaps that was Pey'j. So it's pretty cool this year that it actually is Pey'j. We were super excited about being able to reveal the fact that he's going to be in BGE2.

...

Pey'j, as you can see in this image, is carrying Knox, who was wounded. You can see how close these guys are. They've probably been flying in space for a very long time in this crew and they know each other very well and they're always helping each other.

6/11/18 Instagram: Ancel says that even though Jade has forgotten her past, Pey’j remembers. 

9/28/2019 Inside Look of Beyond Good and Evil 2 with Ubisoft Montpellier - 2019 ZBRush Summit:

"So let's start with Pey'j. Pey'j is probably one of the most iconic characters in BGE. Originally, he is the best friend of Jade, who is the main character of this game, so you can imagine the importance of him. Our goal was to bring a new vision of him without destroying the old one. So how did we do that? First step: we start with some 2D artwork, just to figure out which emotion we want to give him, what narrative part that he will have, and at this stage, everything is possible. The only question which is important is "what makes Pey'j's identity?

Secondly, Pey'j has got a very long history. And I don't know if you've noticed, but in the original BGE which was more cartoony, Pey'j was based on a really round, primitave shape. And, well, it makes him much more easy to recognize. So while we decide to keep this philosophy, but we decide to pass from a round shape to a more hexagonal shape just to bring a more mature and tough feeling. So that's why I use a weight on the screen as a symbol of what emotion we want to give to Pey'j. This shape process I think is a very simple way to communicate with the character artist. That's all the process is based on. Collaboration between the concept artist and the character artist, we need those kinds of tools to speak together."

...

“We start with the most complicated part of this character, it's the head. So Sebastien gives me concept art of his head and asked: "try to match it". Okay, so I have made a rough, and as you can see, ugly model of Pey'j after some couple of hours. And then, Sebastien provided me with comprehensive feedback of the character he wants. At the beginning of the process, all the feedback is "macro feedback". And I make my ping-pong with him, and after that other feedback, going more in detail in the character. And that was done."

Pey’j in BGE1

Media

Profile (official website):

Age: 50

Occupation: Handyman

Personality: Grumpy, yet attentive and endearing, Pey’j is a fighter who’s seen and done it all. He’s often seen hanging out in the Akuda Bar with a stiff drink and a cigar, telling jokes and old stories of his life experiences.

Special Skills: A mechanical and electronic genius, Pey’j is renowned for his skills as a handyman and his ability to fix anything he gets his hands on. He keeps Jade’s equipment up and running, and is constantly inventing new gadgets and machines for Jade Reporting - or just for the fun of it...

Background: Pey’j is a hybrid being - half-man and half-hog. He’s Jade’s adoptive uncle and has brought her up since she was a child. Despite his reservations and fears, he’s been a great influence and tutor for Jade, and still tries to protect her and help her out with her missions whenever he can.

Current Residence: Pey’j lives on the small island in Hyllis with Jade in a cozy lighthouse that he built from scratch many years ago.

Vehicle: Pey’j doesn’t like to drive – Jade’s usually behind the wheel. He does take care of all the vehicles mechanically, though, and he has a special place in his heart for his famed Beluga Spaceship.

Prized Possession: His Jet Boots – a one-of-a-kind invention that allows Pey’j to blast himself or other objects high into the air.

What He’s Doing Now: Pey’j spends a lot of time with Jade - in fact, you will usually find him right by her side on her reporting missions. Otherwise, Pey’j spends most of his time in his workshop, although no one is really sure what he does down there!

Official Guide (Bradygames):

Characters: Meet Jade’s adoptive uncle and cantankerous right-hand pig. Pey’j is a mechanic and inventor-- indeed, a couple of his inventions play a large role in this adventure. Use his Super Action Jet Boots stomp to bounce certain opponents into the air so Jade can bat them into distant targets. His dogged (or perhaps we should say pigged) loyalty keeps him at Jade’s side despite his reservations about the evolving adventure.

Live Chat Interview with Michel Ancel 10/21/2003: 

Question 6: (BircGuest-24085213): Hello - How much of a part will Jade's friend 'Pey’J' play in the game?

(Michel): Pey’J is very important in the story and for the gameplay. You'll spend about one third of the game with him but , for the other part, he will still have a very important role (but I can t say too much.... )

...

Question 12: (dreamdancer5): why is Pey’J styled like a pig? and not like a man or anything else?

(Michel): please, instead of snipe, read style in the "having their own...." sentence....I m sooooo tired.....need some holidays :).... (Michel): I like the spirit of self derision. Pey’J is very important; he's got a strong personality but looks like a beast. I believe that most of us have more inside that outside our appearance. If you finish the game, you’ll see what I mean.

Early Storyboard: (unused and revised in final game)

Age: 56

Race: Hybrid clone          Sn-b5234

Name: Pey’j

In-game Dialogue & Cutscenes (SPOILERS)

“For Jade” Mdisk:

Jade, You inherited generosity and courage from your parents. You know, I think about them a lot. We were very close friends.

Twenty years ago we were forced to separate because we were all having some major problems with the authorities. Your parents put you under my care… to save your life…

We came to Hillys. Back then, it was a peaceful planet. I had hoped to raise you there safely. But the conflict spread. Now, you must know something… if I was able to get here, it was thanks to the "Beluga”, the spaceship that I designed and built with your father.

It still exists. But I haven’t exactly finished getting it back in top shape. You’ll find the check-up report on my desk.

The “Beluga” is at our place. You have to enter a code into each one of the consoles to open the secret hiding place. I can’t say any more on this Mdisk about it, but I hope this information will be useful to you, if, one day, you have to use the “Beluga”.

No matter what happens, good luck, Jade…

Uncle Pey'j

DomZ Priest (cutscene):

DOMZ PRIEST: Shauuuuuuuuniiiiii. You have finally come back to me… You have served your master well, Shauni. You alone have brought the Hillyans to me. They have followed you blindly.

HH: Miss Jade ?!

DOMZ PRIEST: DorthKaul  Pahkahn! You are not who you think you are. The pig has hidden your origins from you…

PEY'J: Jade!  NO!!  Don’t listen to him! Hhh!… Aaaarrh!…

DOMZ PRIEST: You are the source of my powers the instrument of my strength. They took you away in the hope of destroying me. But I have survived, feeding me with only the most miserable of sacrifices. They made you human. But you are not like them. You are mine, Shauni, and I am going to kill the human part of you.

HH: Jade!!

DOMZ PRIEST: Shauni DomZ ThindraaaHHH!!

[fallenloverecords]

Interview:  Gentle Brontosaurus

Hi lovers! Here at Fallen Love headquarters we periodically interview people that we adore in order to shine a spotlight on our wonderful pop planet. We post all those interviews right here for your education and enjoyment.

Gentle Brontosaurus are an indiepop band from Madison, Wisconsin, USA. They are Huan-Hua Chye (ukulele & keyboard), Nick Davies (keyboard & trumpet), Cal Lamore (guitar), Paul Marcou (drums), and Anneliese Valdes (bass). Fallen Love head Harley interviewed the band through a computer. Fallen Love Records: How did Gentle Brontosaurus begin? Huan-Hua: Get ready for some band lineage in excruciating detail:

Nick and I used to be in a band called TL;DR that broke up after a couple of band members moved away, so we decided to start a new band.

We knew Paul and Jon from having played with their old band, Baristacide, and we recruited Michael to play bass for us through Craigslist.

Eventually Jon decided it was time to part ways with us and we asked Cal to play guitar. Nick and I had met Cal through a songwriting website called FAWM, February Album Writing Month.

Last year Michael moved to Milwaukee and decided to leave the band so we recruited Anneliese, whom I had met via a community ukulele club called MAUI and who had filled in on bass for us a while back for a Buffy The Vampire Slayer Musical Episode cover show we did with our friends Croaker.

And here is a curated selection of a few of our other related current or recent projects you might want to check out - we are busy individuals: Square Bombs (Paul & Jon) The Werewolverine (Anneliese) The Ferns or C. H. Lamore solo (Cal) Vowl Sounds, Red Tape Diaries (Huan-Hua) Spiral Island (Nick)

FLR: All five of you sing. Was that something planned on from the early stages or did it just discover itself? HH: We used to only have three vocalists (max one lead and one backing at any given time) but decided that seven instruments and three vocals between five people wasn't making the sound guys' lives hard enough (not to mention ours) so we added some more. It has definitely been a voyage of self-discovery. I think we'll try to streamline a bit more in the future, though, since venues almost never have enough mics. FLR: Based on your social media some people might expect you to be a comedy or novelty band. Are new listeners ever caught off-guard? Nick: Is this regarding the Facebook account where we share dinosaur memes or the Twitter account where we post things like Baha Men trivia? Early on I had our genre listed as "brony rock" on Facebook just as a joke and it’s come back up occasionally. Like the time Jimmy K, a local radio personality, had both us and The Ferns (Cal's previous band) on an episode of his show and he got his intro cards mixed up and called The Ferns "brawny rock." HH: Also we got invited to put a song on an actual brony rock compilation, which was unfortunately vetoed by other band members. Anyway I aim to keep expectations at rock bottom so that new listeners can only be pleasantly surprised when we turn out to be (hopefully) honest and charming and good. I don't usually aim for funny when I'm writing songs (although sometimes it ends up there) but I usually aim to be entertaining on social media. (I usually man the Facebook account and Nick the Twitter account). I feel it's the least I can do. FLR: Who writes the lyrics? Each song carries a real depth, like a full short story condensed into four minutes. HH: Nick and I are about 50/50 on songwriting. On the first album our old guitarist wrote one and our old bassist wrote one but I think on the new album it's more or less evenly divided between me and Nick as far as lyrics go. I think the two of us share a love for possibly ill-advised wordiness and allusions so sometimes people have been surprised to find out who wrote which songs. I wrote poetry for years before ever turning to lyrics and a few songs, like "Rabbit Test", are remnants of poems or stories or concepts I could never quite make work on the written page. N: I don't intend to give every song a narrative but in addition to FAWM in February I participate in NaNoWriMo in November. Maybe some of that bleeds over into songwriting. Storytelling does provide a way to address topics without being tied to your own perspective. I'd be kind of uncomfortable writing songs all about Nick and how Nick feels right now, especially if we might decide to have someone else in the band sing it. HH: I, on the other hand, love writing songs all about HH and how HH feels right now. Maybe this is why we have so many songs about food.

FLR: Your debut album, Names Of Things And What They Do, came out in November 2015. What was the process to get there and how has the path shifted since then? HH: That album was very DIY like our new one will be. We recorded it over a period of months in our old practice space and our old guitarist Jon mixed it. Similar approach this time around, all home recordings. It's going to be an interesting mix as some of these songs, like "Kevin Bacon", we've played for years (it almost made it onto the first album) and others, like "A Shot" or "For Emma, Forever Ago", we'd only been playing for a few weeks and had never played live before starting to record. So for those newer songs we're kind of figuring out arrangements and parts as part of the recording process. We recorded all the drums and scratch tracks live, the way we're used to playing, and are now going along and re-recording individual parts to replace the scratch versions. One of the things that's pretty interesting about our piecemeal recording process is that we often can't hear/process the cool things everyone else is doing since we are distracted at the time with our own performances. Sound balance is also difficult to get right live with five people,so there have been a lot of moments where, once you're listening to a clear recording, you go "Oh, I had no idea you had this awesome part happening here." It makes you appreciate everyone and their contributions and musicianship just that much more. FLR: Do you think dinosaurs had feathers or scales? Anneliese: Yes, and some had neither. FLR: Why hasn't Netflix rebooted popular '90s sitcom Dinosaurs yet? A: This might be a question for the Jim Henson Workshop. Fun fact: Kevin Clash, who's the voice of Elmo, was also the voice of Baby Sinclair. And Jessica Walter (of Arrested Development) was the voice of the mother. HH: I'm sure it's on the horizon since we are apparently officially in the midst of a serious worldwide franchise shortage. I will officially volunteer us to provide the soundtrack for the inevitable gritty, sexy reboot. (I mean have you seen Riverdale, the gritty, sexy Archie reboot? Anything is possible.) The theme song will be called "Nobody's Baby" and will be in the style of Julee Cruise and everyone will wear black leather jackets and white undershirts in a very sexy James Dean kind of way. Also, if you don't have a physical copy of our album, Baby Sinclair fans should check out the art on the inner sleeve. FLR: Do you ever get tired of answering dinosaur questions? Will your choice of band name haunt you for the rest of time? HH: No and no. Since we are from the Land Before Time I'm not totally sure yet what this "time" thing is but I'm sure I'll figure it out one of these days. (Sorry to the random person on Tumblr I stole that joke from.)

FLR: What's your earliest musical memory? N: The first songs I wrote were entirely MIDI, written in a sheet music editor. Sadly they were lost forever in the mp3.com buyout of 2001. I thought I had a cassette copy but I went back to my parents' house in D.C. this past summer and the cassette is gone too. After that era I started recording angsty stuff with a beat-up acoustic guitar and some ill-conceived "rapping." Unfortunately there are surviving copies of that. A: Dancing around the living room to my dad's old boogie-woogie records when I was three or four. HH: They gave us recorders in grade school because the only thing better than one five year-old playing the recorder is fifteen of them all at once so I clearly recall making some really avant-garde noise rock as part of my early musical education. Also one of our music teachers was a grad student at the UC Berkeley School of Music and wrote an opera called The Nightingale that he made us learn, like a troupe of performing opera monkeys. FLR: What song have you listened to the most this year? HH: I went to look at my Spotify stats and some of my top tracks in recent months have been: Frankie Cosmos- "Fool", Big Thief - "Masterpiece", X - "The World's A Mess, It's In My Kiss", Eux Autres - "Other Girls", and Jens Lekman - "To Know Your Mission." N: I'm also enjoying the new Jens Lekman album! Crying's Beyond The Fleeting Gales has been the album that has hardly left my car stereo this year. FLR: What's one question you've never been asked in an interview that you would love to be asked someday? HH: You are standing in front of two doors. Behind one lies immeasurable riches, behind the other lies certain death. There are two guards guarding the doors, one sworn to always lie and one sworn to always tell the truth, but you don't know which is which. What is the best song ever written, and why is it "Africa" by Toto? N: If we're ever interviewed by Nardwuar [The Human Serviette] I hope he knows that I dressed as him for Halloween once. HH: Also I think Paul and Anneliese were hoping to do a Jerry Springer-style interview someday with paternity tests and chair fights in front of a studio audience. FLR: What does 2018 look like for Gentle Brontosaurus? I know you're working on your sophomore album. N: We've started recording out at Cal's parents' barn in Cambridge, WI. You must have seen the big chart on Facebook. Once we get that released I think we're hoping to go out on tour again. Maybe reconnect with some of the folks we met on the road in 2016 or maybe play some shows around the upper midwest where we actually haven't been yet. FLR: The first album came on CD with a piece of toast. Will the new album come as a download code in a jar of jam? N: If someone bought our toast in 2015 and is still hanging onto it in 2018, I don't think jam is going to make it edible. HH: I'm not really into jam bands. Gentle Brontosaurus on Bandcamp Gentle Brontosaurus on Facebook

[the-blog-of-anger-blog]

I’m Pro-Life and tired of it being mocked so here we go

Now, I absolutely believe that it is a woman’s choice to get pregnant or not but more on that later. This is a long one, folks. Buckle in for health class.

This is not a popular opinion on tumblr and that is because people like to pretend that things are what they’ve heard repeated rather than do their own research and often that means it’s a crisis, it’s an outrage, and it’s an attack. So here’s my research to support the other pro-lifers out there.

Do I believe there are exceptions for abortion? Yes, Of course.

But the Pro-Choice movement too often uses the exceptions to justify the majority. The percentage of rapes that result in a pregnancy is 5%. 5% This is from 2 different studies.

This is not even the percentage of women who are raped who actually choose to have an abortion. In fact, the women who choose (not forced mind you, I’m not heartless) to keep their baby often recover easier and faster from the trauma as they have something good to focus on and help them heal.

So when it comes to the other 95% of women, I have problems. The natural biological consequence of sex is reproduction. The whole point of sex is to build on the relationship between partners (Oxytocin, folks, nothing like it apart from straight up dopamine) and to reproduce. 

Also, if any of your are interested, John F. Kennedy,  Victoria Woodhull, the first female candidate for president, Elizabeth Blackwell,  Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the latter being notable suffragettes, were all very anti-abortion.

“The Revolution published a piece, attributable to [Susan B.] Anthony, that said abortion was a choice that would burden both a woman’s “conscience in life and soul in death” and also ultimately an exploitation of women.” (http://time.com/4093214/suffragettes-abortion/)

Times have changed and this is a hydra of a problem so I’m not going to just say ‘abstinence is all you need’ because I’m not in charge of anyone’s sex life. People have been sleeping together out of wedlock for centuries and it’s not just going to go away. However, if we’re talking about a woman’s right to choose, why is the woman’s right to choose to have sex somehow not a factor?

 So, key issues: Contraception, Science/Biology, Inhumanity, and Responsibility.

#1 Contraception.   We need better contraceptive methods. Period. I especially promote researching better male contraceptives cause condoms are clearly not cutting it and, as spoken before, it’s a lot safer to unload a gun than to shoot at a bulletproof vest. It bothers me a great deal that people on both sides of this debate overlook that we can stand united on this front at the very least. No one should really be arguing with me on this. It’s gotta get better.

Also, better sex-education and to me, this means parents stepping up and being parents and giving the freaking Talk like the adults they are as well as discussing safe contraceptive methods. Sex-Ed classes are failing miserably with a nasty combination of misinformation and the creation of false confidence so teens believe that they know enough about what they’re doing to not worry about the consequences. (Fun fact: Planned Parenthood has actually taken over Sex-Ed program for multiple states in the North West and STDs and Pregnancy rates have been on the rise there compared to the alternative classes. These are the results of a 5 year report from the HHS Office of Adolescent Health.)

So from this, I hope it’s clear that I truly believe that women have the right to choose whether or not to be pregnant. I simply argue against abortion.

#2. Science/Biology.    When does life begin? Some say at birth, some say only if the mother wants the child. Imagine for me, if you will, that NASA discovered bacteria growing in the ice just below the Martian landscape. There would be a freak out! Why? Because it would be life on another planet! Now, you tell me that science classifies bacteria as living creatures that we can study, that we protect in several instances because of their potential to replicate vaccines and insulin... but something that has fingers, toes, a functional nervous system, and studies are going on out whether or not can dream... is only considered alive if it’s wanted by the mother? Wake up call: That’s not science. That’s strictly opinion and it’s an opinion that science refutes.

“But it’s just a glob of cells. It’s not a real person.” Have you taken a biology course? What are you made of? What are all living things made of? Cells. What are a bunch of cells called? Tissue. What do tissues make? Organs and on to organ systems and a body. You are a glob of cells. I’ll repeat that really quick. YOU ARE TECHNICALLY A GLOB OF CELLS. So, yeah. Of course that’s what you’re going to be told if you’re getting an abortion. Abortion clinics want your business. They want your money. Why else does Planned Parenthood not do ultrasounds unless you’ve agreed to have an abortion already? 

“ I worked at Planned Parenthood here in New Jersey and they don't do ultrasounds unless you are there for an abortion. They only do gynceology. Your best bet is to call and ask. “ (direct quote. Name not to be disclosed.)

“ Another issue that we ran into quite often, was when women would come in who had a legitimate problem, for example polycystic ovary syndrome, or maybe fibroids, or something like that, who we could not diagnose because there were no ultrasound technicians or any type of ultrasound other than the ultrasound that is available at the abortion facilities. “    - Ramona Trevino, Former Planned Parenthood Manager who has since joined the Pro-Life movement

So, yeah. I don’t trust or support Planned Parenthood at all let alone to define for me what life is.

Btw, 1st trimester of pregnancy ends at 12 weeks. This is a miscarried baby at 12 weeks.

Eyes, finger, toes, organs, ears, cartilage forming bones, all of these and more are present and people degrade it to “a clump of cells” making is sound like there’s no shape or form or potential to a fetus. That’s not science. That’s intentional deception.

#3 It’s entirely inhumane.   For those of you who are unaware of what each trimester level abortion is, it’s more and more horrible the more you research exactly what “ D & X or Intrauterine Cranial Decompression” means. 

The first is usually just a pill, 2 really, that essentially trigger your period x 5. There is immense bleeding, cramping, general pain and discomfort and it goes on for sometimes over a week. If you were to contact Planned Parenthood about concerns you have (which a great deal of young teen girls will do) you will be told to go to the emergency room and tell them you’re simply having a miscarriage. Meanwhile a chemical is in your body that can have bad reactions to medications you may receive to stop the bleeding. In short, as soon as you leave the clinic, Planned Parenthood is done with you until the next time you’re pregnant. The other possible option is to have the fetus sucked out of you with a vacuum, often in pieces but sometimes as one singular body.

2nd Trimester: Either a chemical solution is inserted into the amniotic sac to basically burn the fetus to death inside of you - this sometimes fails and instead triggers an early labor - before the now dead baby leaves in a miscarriage, or a doctor will basically take a mini ice cream scooper and break the baby into pieces before scooping them out. Option three involves the baby being torn into pieces and vacuumed out instead. Don’t believe me? The way they check that the procedure is done is they catalog that each part of the baby is present.There have been babies born at 16 weeks - the end of the 2nd trimester - that have since grown up.

3rd trimester - Often illegal now but some people don’t care: Chemical solution again followed by crushing the baby’s skull so it can be pulled out through the vaginal cavity often followed once again by a vacuum to get the brain matter and leftover pieces out of the uterus. If you don’t think that’s sick, you’re too far gone. This is for babies that could be born any day without this procedure. The only other case is for actual late-term miscarriages.

#4 Responsibilty.  Most abortions, as previously proved, occur due to inconvenience. Cases of medical complications or rape trauma are not what I’m talking about here. I’m talking straight-up “I just don’t want to have to deal with kids” inconvenience. Only it’s not even that. It’s “Well, yeah, I created this thing... but... You know, it’s hard maintenance, you know? Continually existing while having another life dependent on me and my ability to exist responsibly. Nah, it’s not for me. I’ll just go over here and play with my cat instead.”. It’s ridiculous. 

Perhaps you haven’t noticed this trend, but our society has been trained and hate responsibility. I know. It comes from a heck of a lot of other people’s consequences slamming into us with the force of a semi truck. It comes from schools where we’re overloaded with homework to the point where dropping out sounds nicer and nicer. It comes from growing up in a family that’s struggling financially where you might even see the example of parents choosing to shrug off the responsibility to raise their kids properly.

We hate responsibility and we fear it. So when I tell you that I know most of you who are Pro-Choice simply want to be able to sleep with whoever they want whenever they want with no consequence, it’s because you don’t want to be responsible. If you’re at that point, heck no. You should not be a parent. I don’t want to put a kid at risk with someone who clearly doesn’t want the responsibility of parenthood. That’s the whole reason people choose foster care and adoption. Because there’s a higher chance of the child being cared for. That’s sad considering the foster system is a mess.

For ladies being pressured into an abortion by your partner, ask yourself this: Do I want to stay in a relationship where my man abuses my kids? Would I stand by in a situation like that? No? If you’re being pressured into an abortion, you’re being told to sacrifice your child for their convenience. Don’t do it. Reach out for help and you will find it.  

 So here’s my advice for anyone considering abortion but who isn’t sure: Pull a Juno. Take responsibility for your actions and responsibility for your child for as long as you need to. Find a family looking to adopt - skip the Foster Care System entirely - and it’s surprisingly easy. You can literally google “looking for a family to adopt my baby” and you’ll be given dozens of options of hopeful parents willing to work with you to adopt right away. Reminder: If you find someone who wants to adopt your baby, they’re definitely going to work with you to make it happen. Your baby is at more risk of an unhappy foster home if you’re just dropping them off at the hospital with no connections.

So, there’s my blurb. I’ll write one purely on Planned Parenthood and all of the many many ways that it’s actually costing women more than other pregnancy health centers.

[the-record-newspaper]

The Killing of Rhonda Hinson: Part 9

                                                  Rhonda Hinson

By LARRY GRIFFIN

Special Investigative Reporter  

For The Record

 Good God yes, he’s mad!—Rhonda Hinson’s asseveration to Birdell Pittman after her midnight phone call to Greg McDowell

 Bobby and Judy Hinson were not expecting their daughter to come home after the Hickory Steel Christmas party on the evening of December 22nd.  

“She told me that if she went to the party, she would spend the night with Sherry Pittman [Yoder],” Ms. Hinson recounted. “Rhonda had to go to work the next day; so, she said that it would be easier to go from Sherry’s house.”

Before she departed for the party, Rhonda Hinson laid out a change of clothes to take with her—clothing that never made it to her car.  She left them on her bed.  “It wouldn’t have bothered her to wear to work the next morning the new clothes that she wore to the party,” Judy averred.  “It was to be her last day of work before the Christmas holidays.”

By the time Rhonda arrived at the Pittman house, the Hickory Steel Christmas party had likely begun.  It was decided that Sherry would drive and that Tonya Benge [Fetherbay], who lived in nearby Granite Falls, along with Rhonda would leave their automobiles at the Pittmans’.  Even though she told her mom that she would leave the festivities if Greg McDowell and his parents made an appearance, it certainly was not lost on her that she would have to remain at the party until Sherry decided to drive them back to her house to retrieve vehicles. Fortunately for Rhonda, the McDowells never showed.

Back in Valdese, Jill Turner-Mull awaited the arrival of her boyfriend, Mark Turner.  The couple was going to drive back to his house to spend the evening. Dinner and a movie were on the agenda; however, Jill had to return home by midnight.  “I was only 18-years-old, home from college, and still living with my parents.  I had no car; but I still had a curfew— twelve midnight,” Ms. Turner-Mull explained during an initial January 26, 2019 interview.  “After we ate, we sat down to watch the show—and fell asleep.”

Having not been invited to the party by his girlfriend, Greg McDowell stayed at home that evening, according to his parents who also decided not to attend the Hickory Steel Christmas celebration.  It is unclear the reason.  In a February, 1982 interview with authorities, Betty McDowell averred that they decided not to attend because Mr. McDowell had a stomach virus.  However, in a later interview with Detective James Pruett of the Burke County Sheriff’s Department, the McDowell’s daughter, Charlene Clemmons Johnson, stated that her father had something to take care of the night of the party, and that’s why they did not attend.    

Interestingly while Rhonda was attending the company’s Yuletide soiree, a telephone call was placed from the McDowell residence to the Hinson’s home at 8:15 p.m.  Just a minute before, the caller made an apparent misdial to a Statesville phone number—he/she dialed (704) 878-9379 in lieu of the Valdese ‘879’ prefix.  Bobby Hinson recalled that the phone rang, but when he picked up the receiver and said, “Hello,” no one responded.

“I’m not sure about the time because I was busy cooking when the phone rang.  Bobby answered and he said there was someone on the line but nobody answered. Neither of us thought much about it at the time,” Judy Hinson recounted.

After Rhonda had left for the party, Judy dressed to go to a Weight Watchers meeting.  

I asked Bobby to go with me; I didn’t want to go alone.  I stayed about 10 minutes and then left.  We stopped at the store and bought gas and then came home. Wednesday was to be the last day of work before Christmas for Rhonda.  She had asked me to make some cookies and candy for her to take to work…I cooked until about 11 (p.m.).  I was so tired I decided to get up early Wednesday morning to finish the things for Rhonda to take to work before she had to leave.

The exact time that the partygoers left the festivities to return to the Pittman residence at 4th Avenue  NW, Hickory is unknown; however, statements suggest that it must have been approximately 11:30 p.m.  Ms. Birdell Pittman, Sherry’s mother, recalled that it must have been near midnight when the trio returned.  

In a Dec. 19, 1995 statement, she maintained that her husband had gone to bed around 11 p.m.  She normally stayed up later and did so that evening.  Ms. Pittman stated that she busied herself ironing her husband’s white shirts—a task that took 30 minutes or more to complete. She was in the process of folding the ironing board and storing it when Rhonda, Tonya, and her daughter returned. It was 11:50 p.m., she affirmed.

“Rhonda and Sherry went upstairs, talking about having fun at the party.  The party was on a work night; it was the only time that Hickory Steel could reserve the building; so, both Rhonda and Sherry had to work the next day.”

Around midnight, Rhonda Hinson asked Ms. Pittman if she could use the phone to call Greg, explaining that it would not be long distance to call from there.  “She walked down the steps and called Greg from a wall phone near the downstairs kitchen. I did not hear the conversation but remember Rhonda saying that her boyfriend was very mad.”

Sherry Pittman [Yoder]—in various statements—recalled more details of the midnight conversation:

I overheard Rhonda say, ‘I am leaving to go home now.’   When she hung up the phone, she went into the bathroom. When she came out again, she was crying. My Mother asked if Greg was mad, and Rhonda said, ‘Good God yes, he’s mad!’”

At that juncture—even though she had planned to stay overnight—Rhonda left abruptly after saying, “I had better go,” according to Ms. Pittman.  The two ladies stood at the downstairs door and watched Rhonda get into her car and leave between 15 or 20 minutes after midnight.  It would take her about 18 minutes to make the drive from Sherry’s house to the Mineral Springs Road exit off Interstate 40.  

Rhonda Hinson had approximately 35 minutes to live.

About four miles west of the Pittman’s residence in Indian Hill, Jill Turner-Mull awoke from a movie-induced sleep several minutes before midnight.  “I don’t remember what movie we were watching; it must have not been too riveting as we both fell asleep,” Jill recollected.  “I woke Mark up and told him that we had to go; my parents were not going to be very happy about my missing the curfew.”

A few minutes later, the couple boarded Mark’s 1977 gold-colored Buick Regal to make the 15-18 minute drive from the Turner’s Indian Hill residence to Jill’s house.

Mark pulled up in front of my house to let me out; he didn’t like to drive down our steep driveway; there had been some ice that day.  I got out of his car, walked around to the driver’s side to kiss him goodnight.  It was then that I glanced into Mark’s backseat and noticed Rhonda’s hooded sweatjacket with the HH WTC lettering on it.  I asked him why he had Rhonda’s jacket in his car.  He said that she left it when the two of them went Christmas shopping to buy me a present.  I told him if he would give it to me, I would make certain that Rhonda got it back.  He replied that he would just give it to Greg when he saw him next.

 Mark left the Turner’s Valdese residence, traveled down sloping Hazel Street, and paused at the stop sign prior to making a left-hand turn onto Mineral  Springs Mountain Road toward the interstate.  It was approximately 12:30 AM.  

It was approaching 12:40 a.m. when the headlights of Rhonda’s 210 Datsun illuminated the Mineral Springs Mountain exit sign.  She slowed to take the exit, about a half-mile from her Hillcrest home. From a dead-stop, the newly-disheveled 19-year-old quickly shifted from first to second gear.  As the Datsun commenced to negotiate the Eldred Street incline, she heard the engine’s swelling strain and reached to shift from second, through neutral, and into third gear.

At approximately 12:55 AM, Dianne Lowman and Mike Warren heard the report of a high-powered rifle about a minute after arriving at Lowman’s home, located behind the Garden Center [now Hawkins Antiques] on Hauss Ridge Road, near the interstate exit.

Suddenly, Rhonda Hinson felt something horribly wrong deep inside her chest; she caught her breath.  

Precipitously and inexplicably, Judy Hinson was jolted from a sound sleep and sat straight up in her bed.

Editor’s Note:  Mark Turner and his wife, Faith have been contacted through social media on several occasions requesting that he respond to specific asseverations contained in this story.  To date he has refused to do so.  Faith Turner indicated--in writing--that neither one of them would be talking to any investigative reporter.  Efforts to garner comments from Mr. Turner continue.

  Sherry Pittman Yoder's house in Hickory from whence Rhonda left to drive home after the Christmas party that early morning, December 23, 1981.  At the juncture, she had circa 35 minutes to live.  

Record photo by Larry Griffin

[whoareurl]

Now I come to do this myself it's really hard to think of words! Let's try: Dizzy, American, Unrestrained.

(ngl i sat in ur askbox for like 20 minutes thinking of words omg it’s hard)

Viktor is always impressed that Yuuri got into an American university. Not only that, but he graduated from a university which taught in his second language while also skating at the Grand Prix Final. Viktor thinks in italics a lot when he thinks about Yuuri.

So, when Yuuri is asked to attend an alumni event, Viktor is adamant that he should go.

After some arguing (”I don’t want to!”) and anxiety (”What if everybody is really successful and I’m just me?” - Viktor cannot understand how Yuuri can consider an Olympic gold medal to be unsuccessful), Yuuri caves and they fly out to Detroit in First Class.

The event is formal and seeing Yuuri in a suit still makes Viktor weak at the knees. Ever since he’d forced Yuuri to get a tailored suit, formal events became infinitely more enjoyable. Everything was infinitely more enjoyable when Yuuri’s butt was well-displayed.

The room set-up is reminiscent of the many banquets Viktor has attended over the years and, judging by the soft blush on Yuuri’s face, his darling has noticed it too. It’s endearing how Yuuri still gets embarrassed about their first banquet together.

They’re greeted first by two men, one around Yuuri’s age and one significantly older with a grey beard, both holding flutes of champagne. Viktor gleans from the conversation that they both now work for the US government. 

Viktor keeps his arm looped through Yuuri’s while he lets his mind wander. Ever since Yuuri came into his life, Viktor has enjoyed himself at these formal dinners much more. He remembers too many years forcing smiles and laughing politely at dull conversation with uninteresting people. He remembers being alone and tired and never quite drunk enough.

And then Yuuri. Oh, Yuuri. What a light he has brought to Viktor’s heart.

When Viktor tunes back into the conversation, three women have joined their circle. One is chatting animatedly about her work in clean energy and her husband. 

The man with the grey beard laughs and says, “Ah, marriage. The old ball and chain.”

Viktor stares. He doesn’t understand. But then the woman laughs too.

“Well, we put up with each other. That’s as good as it gets, right?” She says. 

Viktor can’t breathe. He doesn’t understand. What does she mean by ‘putting up with’ her husband? That doesn’t make any sense. Don’t they- don’t they love each other so much that it hurts in their chests?

Viktor can’t breathe.

HHehhtzzishhoo!

He curls away from the crowd at the last minute with a hand over his mouth, taken completely by surprise. What the-

ehhtiSHHEW! hh…iHZHISHHOO!

The sneezes are strong and unrestrained and he hears a chorus of amused bless you’s from the group. Yuuri offers him a handkerchief as he straightens up but he finds himself snatching it without offering thanks before he’s thrown forward again.

hhiHHSHoo! inGISHHOOO! hhh…

Viktor sniffles, rubbing his itchy nose through the fabric and offering a general apology. He nods vaguely to Yuuri’s worried “Vitya?” and then he’s sneezing again. And again. And one more time for luck.

“Oh, excuse me,” he says sheepishly but then he sniffles and he smells perfume and his eyes scrunch shut again and-

hhhHRSZZISHHEW!

He leans heavily against Yuuri after that last one, cheeks flushed with embarrassment. He feels dizzy from the sudden onslaught.

Yuuri takes his hand, squeezes it tight, and says, “Sorry but I’ll have to bow out early. I’m afraid my husband isn’t feeling well.”

And then he drags Viktor to the bathroom. He sits Viktor up on the ledge between the sinks and washes his face with paper towels doused in cold water and gently, lovingly, kisses the tip of his pink nose.

“Hotel?”

Viktor waggles his eyebrows in an attempt to look seductive. “You want to make me feel all better, Yuuri?” He asks, voice low as he walks two fingers up Yuuri’s chest, delighting in the way his husband shivers under his touch.

“You’re a bad man, Viktor Nikiforov,” Yuuri scolds.

Viktor laughs. Yuuri delights him every single day.

[spocksaestheticblog-blog]

so i wrote some NATM fanfiction starring my two favorite morbid egyptian shitpost brothers ft. a very tired larry daley and also the police. and the assumption that its the franklin museum bc tbh im in PA and honestly, its definitely the franklin museum. no one gives a fck there. its in philly. no ones gonna bat an eye if a neandertal homeless lookin dude bursts into dust in the street.

it goes along with these two arts if anyones wondering

this is probably just chapter 1 but i dont know if im really gonna write more, honestly a lot of this is just vent for my own trauma so take that with a grain of salt, and dont expect this to be. good. or coherent.

content warning for CSA references and self harm, foul language.

The young pharaoh wakes up to the familiar voice of Larry Daley, letting out a few deep coughs as he clears the dust from his lungs and brushes centuries old sand from his robes. “Ahk, I know we talked about this before, but I want to make sure you’re prepared, because I think one of the mummies in the new exhibit might be. Your brother.”

“…Oh! Where are they kept, then?! I haven’t seen him in many an age!” Akhmenra leaps out of his sarcophagus, only to have Larry put a hand out to stop him in his tracks.

“…You heard me, right? Your brother. The one that you told me held a pillow over your head while you were trying to sleep.”

Akh winces, suddenly regretting telling Larry about that. “…Too dark? It happened in Egypt all the time. I’m sure he had a reason. I would have done the same thing, probably. Maybe.”

Larry levels him a patented Look, but Akh waved it off, bouncing in place. Eventually, Larry caves and leads him down the hall, only to have someone round the corner and smack directly into Larry, knocking him to the ground. The figure brushes back complicated, gold-ringed braids that end in golden bird feet, coughing and trying to speak.

“Hhhhheh. Hkhkk- hehk- hh. Hello.”

Akhmenra’s eyes widen at the sight of his brother in the flesh, bound in linens just as he himself was, scars peeking out behind braids along the back of his neck, only slightly paler than he had been in life. Even so, he still proved to be tanner than Akh, kohl smudged into the deep crows feet around his eyes only accentuating this fact.

“Hey, yeah, I’m Larry. I’m not sure we’ve met…?”

Kahmunra. He was actually here.

“…Oh. Okay. Hyeah… I remember you.” His voice is rough, but smooths out slightly the more he speaks, lisp ever present as usual. “…You tfhwarted my plans! My uh, evil plans, heh! Army of the dead and all that…”

Akhmen can’t help but run up and hug the older Egyptian, despite their history. Even when Kahmun flinches, he drags his brother to a bench and sits him down, immediately occupying the spot next to him. “How did you get here?! Do you remember anything else? Tell me everything!”

Kahmunra looks…slightly paler at that, wincing, but gesturing as he begins to describe his adventures as a wax dummy. “Honestly, it washnt that interesting. Shpent a lot of time in shtorage watching videos, mosthly.” He pulls his arm back when he’s noticed the bandages aren’t covering his wrist, so Akh only gets a glimpse, but it almost seems like his arm has…stripes. Something.

He watches as Kahmun jumps to his feet. “Hey, I heard ththhhat- that there was a groshshs- grocers nearby! Wwh why dont we go there? I hhavent eaten in centuries!”

Larry rolls his eyes, even as Akh looks rather surprised at the sudden outburst. It seems Larry is far more used to catering to the whims of every single museum member, and at this point he’s just numb to it and going through the motions. The young pharaoh, at least, has the understanding to know that Kahmun typically hates public spaces and anything that requires too much effort, and he certainly hasn’t been awake here long enough to know about anything in the immediate area.

“I suppose we could head to the Trader Joe’s before it closes. I’m pretty loaded, so. Go nuts, I guess. We should probably get you something to wear on top of that, first, though.”

Kahmunra barely gives them time to blink, making a beeline for the locker room. He’s out in under a minute, wearing sweatpants and ill-fitting sneakers with a jacket that looks far too big, hanging haphazardly over one linen covered shoulder like a fashion statement. “A’right, less’go, time waitsh for no one!”

It’s actually a shorter walk than he expects, but he’s still nervous about someone recognizing them from the museum, especially since he wasn’t given any time to change out of his own royal robes. Kahmun’s assurances that everyone assumes they’re actors is not much comfort, and he really isn’t looking forward to any sort of questions about his job at the museum even if that is the case. He’s not even sure why Kahmunra insisted on leaving the museum in the first place, and he certainly doesn’t want to ask, but Larry doesn’t seem to mind escorting both of them, so he shrugs it off.

There’s less people here than he thought. A few stragglers give him some odd glances here and there, but for the most part, it’s almost empty, and no one bothers them. He starts to worry, though, because Kahmun is simply staring blankly at a box of cereal on the shelf, looking vaguely lost. When he places a hand on his brother’s shoulder, Kah finally speaks, voice low and soft.

“I didn’t mean it, you know. I jusht. I-I didn’t mean it. Yhyou know that, right?” Akh opens his mouth to respond, but Kahmun wanders farther down the aisle like a frightened animal when Larry approaches. Akhmenra jolts slightly as Larry pulls him aside, giving him a confused look as he does so.

“Ahk, he MURDERED you. Do you really trust what he says? You don’t know he’s not lying.”

Larry’s grip on his arm is tight, almost painfully so, as he eyes Kahmun suspiciously from around the corner of the aisle. Akh can see from here that his brother is hiding behind a display case, trembling and avoiding his gaze, looking as if he wants to crawl into the shelves and die. Akh pries Larry’s fingers off of his arm, watching the pale handprint fade from his skin as blood flows back into it.

Without even blinking, Akhmenra slaps him immediately, almost as hard as he possibly can, right palm stinging painfully from the force of it. It’s the only thing that he’s really properly felt in a long time, and he hates it.

“…You don’t know what it was like. For him, or for me. You weren’t THERE. This isn’t something you could possibly contextualize! Don’t TALK to me. Don’t even LOOK at me ever again. I don’t want to see you any more.”

By the time he turns his head to check on his brother, he’s already gone. Distantly, he registers the sound of the automatic doors at the front of the store, and he bolts. This has happened before when they were alive, but never when he’s been close enough to do anything about it. He follows his brother’s footsteps almost instinctually, even when that leads him up a fire escape to the roof of a building, even when his brother is faster, even when he sees a sliver of still-lingering color in the sky, despite sunset having been an hour ago. It’s too early for this. It’s far too early for this.

He stops in his tracks. Kahmun isn’t anywhere near the edge of the roof, so… So what is he doing? Is he okay? Are things okay now? Maybe he just needed space? A million thoughts race through his head as he hesitantly approaches the roof access pillar that his brother is hiding behind. He can’t stop trembling, the residual adrenaline leaving him weak and nauseous.

The panic comes back full force as he rounds the corner. Where did Kahmun even get a knife? Who let him have a knife? Why would…Who would…The sight of blood is too much. It’s far too much. Akh finds himself wrenching the knife from Kahmun with more force than necessary, tossing it far over the edge of the building.

Kahmunrah slumps against the brick wall, eyes unfocused and lids heavy. He sobs openly.

Akhmenrah had never actually properly seen Kahmun’s arms without the linens. He desperately wraps linen around the fresh, deep gashes that bled too fast for his comfort, cutting off circulation. But below those are older scars, he sees now, thousands of them, more than he can count, raised skin like ridges along most of his arm. How long… How long had this been going on? Akh knew about the scars on his back, where the linen sat loose around his collarbone and raised, scarred flesh had always been prominent up the back of his neck. But those were not so obviously self-inflicted.

These scars, these were the kind he’d only seen before on a handful of teens that wore long sleeves in the middle of summer. The ones that strayed to the back of the group, the ones that avoided eye contact. He used to chat with them the most, because they always looked so empty and sad, but he had never…understood.

“…I know it was an accident. I know. I’m here now. It doesn’t matter any more. It never mattered. Please…Please don’t ever- You do not deserve this. Fuck, our parents deserve this, but not you. Not you. You did what you could. Please…Please don’t die. You deserve better.”

He watches his brother turn away slightly, no longer sobbing, instead letting hot tears roll down his face silently as he stares at the ground. He says nothing, and Akh almost wants to shake him to make him believe, hands still wrapped around the wound.

“…D-do you want to go to a hospital? We could- I could. I could just.”

“…I want to go back to the museum. To my sarcophhagus. I want to sleep,” Kah holds up his free hand in surrender as Akh opens his mouth, “-Just sleep. Jusht a nap. Just a quick nap. I’ll- I’ll be okay…” Kahmun laughs, and Akh swallows loudly, trembling still. “…This isn’t even the most blood I’ve ever losht. It’s barely anything. Don’t worry.”

Akhmen can’t even hold it in any more. He sets his forehead against Kahmun’s and wails. He sobs openly as he remembers all the moments in his childhood he tried to forget, tried to bury under dark humor and amusement and authority. He’d watched countless Jews beaten to death by his father’s hands when he was but a child, remembering vividly the face of one of them trying to reassure him, a five year old child, holding what was soon to be a corpse. He remembers being eight and barely being able to breathe from the inside of a pot, fingers burning from the scrapes he’s gotten trying to move the lid, falling still only when he hears pained screaming that he only dimly recognizes as his brother. He remembers the one time he finally managed to raise the lid of his prison, only to shut it again in horror as, for a brief moment, he glimpses nudity and blood through the crack of light. For all of his lifetime he’d assumed his brother was simply trying to torture him, that he’d been playing tricks on him all this time. But he knows what he saw. He knows, and he’d denied it, and he’d pretended all this time that it wasn’t real.

It’s fucking killing him. He knows, now, or maybe he had always known. Kahmun was…hiding him. From this. From whatever this was… And he had hated his brother for this all his life. He’d told people, actual people, that his brother had killed him out of malice. That it was an act of spite and hatred.

“It… It wasn’t an accident. It was never an accident. I couldn’t… I couldn’t let you live like this. I knew what the tablet was, I couldn’t…I couldn’t let you figure out how they made it. I couldn’t let you live like that. I couldn’t live with that. I couldn’t. I couldn’t look at that. I knew. I knew and I let them do it because I was selfush, I. I thought I could take it and mhmaybe this time would be… Maybe it would be differnht. But- But it isnh’t differint at all.”

Akh’s hands drop to his sides loosely. He wants Kahmun to stop talking. He wants to beg Kahmun to stop talking. He can’t handle this, he has no means of processing this, and he cannot handle this knowledge, this torment. Most of all, he desperately wants to feel some sense of betrayal, some sort of pity, anything else other than the intense shard of empathy that feels like hot knives through his blood.

“…I. I wanted to live. Not jusht…Live. I wh- to- I wanted to be okay. I wanted to be okay, just this once. I thought it would be okay if I cccould jusht. I deserved better! I deserved better and I ththought if I lived again that maybe everything wouldn’t… I thought it wouldn’t hurt. I thought everyfhing would be…Okay. I thought… I didn’t know… I…”

Please. Stop. Talking.

For the love of Ra, please stop talking. Anything. Please. Don’t let me hear this.

“…I didn’t- think. I didn’t think the tablet would wake him up. I thought he’d be dead. I thought things would be okay thhis time.”

Akh wishes he’d stayed dead. He wishes he didn’t know. He wishes they were both dead. He doesn’t know what to wish for. His brain scrambles for some semblance of hope or happy outcome or any shred of decency in the immediate future, but nothing is there. Instead, he grasps the wound again, properly wrapping it this time so, hopefully, Kahmun won’t lose any more blood.

“I knknknow you dduhn. nn. nh. srv- dhshr- you’re more worth this thhan I am. Yhhhyou deserved a life. Bhut this is the best I could do. I. I wanted you to have shshomenthing where you would be safe. Not…”

Akhmenrah frowns gently, holding up a hand. “…Kahmun. You need to stop talking. You’ve lost blood.”

“…I kknow. M’sorry bout th…The mess.” Kahmun coughs slightly, more out of embarrassment than anything else, clamping the hand of his good arm on his brother’s shoulder so he can use the leverage to pick himself up. Akh reaches a hand up weakly, as if to stop him, then lets it fall as Kah manages to stand on his own, looking none the worse for wear despite the paleness and the blood.

They both walk back to the museum in silence.

Akh’s feet stop moving when he feels an arm against his chest. When he looks up, there’s at least two police cruisers in front of the museum, and quite a few officers. Kahmun gently hooks his good arm around Akhmenra’s, tugging him backwards through the dark alleyway as slowly as he can.

“…What did you do?”

“I shsshs. I woke up- h  hh. He was right there- hhe wwh. Lifting the lid. I panicked! I ddidn. tuh. uh. I. I panicked. I- I did shay i was sorry a-ah- about the mess.”

“Blessed Amun, what the fuck, Kahmun?! We aren’t even going to jail for this! How are we going to explain this?! What’s going to happen?! What if he comes back? Is he going to come back? Do you know what’s gonna happen when they take his body away?”

Kahmunra looks at him with a joy he’s never seen.

“…I did it. We’re free.”

“No, see, Kahmun, that body is going to decintegrate as soon as the sun rises. What are the police going to do once that happens, huh? They’re gonna see it was a mummy and they’re gonna come after ALL of us!”

Looking smug, Kahmunrah smiles, pressing his tongue through the gap in his crooked front teeth.

“When the sun rishes, someone’s going to see the body’s mishsing from the museum. They’re gonna have a case file, and a bunsh of police that are going to look like they got completely trashed and stole a mummy from a museum. No one is going to look for ush, Akhi.”

The young pharaoh eyes the police warily from the shadows, ducking both of them behind the corner so they’re safely out of view. “…Alright, but I sure hope you’re right. What…What do we do until then? You’ve got a busted arm we need to hide, and we do need to get back in the museum before sunrise…”

“…I saw a CVS around here. Let’s jusht hang out there like it’s the movie Mannequin and we’re Samantha trying to seduce Andrew McCarthy into giving us free sshit.”

Akh’s laughter is almost music, and he gladly follows Kahmun.

……………………………………………………………………………

[itsworn]

Drag Strip Testing an LS6 1971 Corvette

Car Craft Editor Terry Cook surely aspired to something greater. He delighted in assaulting and deconstructing preconceptions. While we wore the trendy rags of the day, he insisted on suits and he knotted nutty ties. Rather than a Tri-Five, a Chevelle or any piece American Iron, he aspired to and drove a freakin’ Morgan- four-bore motor and a frame made out of wood. We were further disoriented when he announced his project hot rod was going to be a fiberglass four-door T nudged by a turbocharged Vega four-popper. Beyond the norm.

Cook was enamored of the Car&Driver philosophy and its editorial execution, as well as key players Leon Mandel and Brock Yates, and for a while he modeled some of Car Craft’s physical production after theirs. Road tests or drag tests or whatever you want to call them, were published without a byline or even a photo credit, as this was policy at the precious New York-based magazine.

Ed Baumgarten .c. Mid America Motorworks

It was policy that CC tech stories leak as much minutia, detail and as many decimal points as possible, because that’s what readers had come to expect from the premier drag racing publication. By the time we were done, column inches had jacked into column-yards, which inevitably overwhelmed the photographic presentation. Cheeky Cook ruffled another feather or two by running carry-over copy in the front of the magazine, rather than the back half as is tradition.

The story here is what I thought I’d remembered and had included in the original copy for “Goodbye Forever LS-6.” I didn’t hit the nail. I barely hit the wall. Truthfully, I don’t even remember if I was the one that wrote it, though the sophomoric slop in it leads me to believe I did. The stuff I missed is astounding.

Most of the time, what you think you remember isn’t how it happened at all. I know. I’ve proven it to myself time and again, because I can look at one of my centuries-old magazine stories and it will tell me so. It can’t be wrong, can it? Sometimes I have to ask someone who was there at the time, and most times I can find a witness. This is about one of those times. But these old days, some of the faithful have already passed on, so I’m on my own here.

In the late sixties/early seventies, if you wanted to traverse the greater Los Angeles landscape in a Chevy, you called the Western Region guy, Wayne Thoms, an affable and accommodating human being if there ever was. He had the go-fast gene, too, even if it was a vicarious one. The length of time you’d spend with the car was strictly up to him, but a month was the usual term—he had to make allowances for the mechanical work you planned to throw at the car as well as the time required to take the hop-up stuff off. More often than not, we’d be grinding the mule for at least two months.

Ed Baumgarten .c. Mid America Motorworks

There was an unwritten agenda at Car Craft: whatever it was, made sure that it ran better than one tested by anyone else. If it didn’t the first time out, you just kept at it. The very least, there were tacit rivalries with Cars, Hot Rod, Popular Hot Rodding and Super Stock & Drag Illustrated, so when Wayne dangled the Ontario Orange C3 under our noses like a maggoty goat carcass to a turkey vulture, we could not refuse.

It had the most powerful motor, so how could we refuse? For its final appearance on the world stage, the once mighty RPO LS6 454 was included in the ZR2 package (Special Purpose LS6 Engine Package) that also featured heavy duty power brakes, an M-22 transmission, transistor ignition, special aluminum radiator with metal fan shrouds, springs, shock absorbers and stabilizer bars for a premium of $1747.

The LS6 had been neutered by much milder events for the solid lifter camshaft and a 9.0:1 dog-brain compression ratio so that it would live on leaded regular (and later the unleaded pee that would be mandatory for the impending catalytic converter.) Quite a way from the race-like 11.25:1 of the 1970 LS6, it still advertised 425hp at 5,600 rpm and 475 lb-ft at 4,000 rpm. Its big 800cfm Holley still threatened in a way the pedestrian Quadra-Jet couldn’t hope to. The cylinder heads were aluminum and featured an open combustion chamber design. Volume was 119.09cc’s. The mechanical lifters were lashed hot at 0.024- and 0.028-inches. Chevy stuttered that the drop in compression for the 1971 LS6 would accommodate regular fuel. It didn’t. It bucked and pinged and wasn’t happy until it was slugging high-test hooch.

Ed Baumgarten .c. Mid America Motorworks

Since most of us preferred tooling a clutch car, that whiney Muncie M-22 close-ratio had more than siren appeal. A diaphragm clutch with a 1,800-pound spring load operated dual 10-inch discs that had aluminum-backed facings and asbestos pads. The steel flywheel weighed 33 pounds. The system behaved well at high rpm and worked without flaw in front of the rock-eating Muncie. Zoom supplied the 4.56:1 gears, and we took the Corvette to Bob Heacox at Scat Enterprises for the installation.

Then we relieved the motor of its nominal cast iron manifolds that had been used to make the factory packaging as simple and as cost-effective as possible. Anyone who wanted the most from the 454 would likely strap on some headers, in this case Hedman (part HH-9) with 2-inch primaries and a 3-inch collector. Then some original BS: “To give the car the rally look (what exactly did that look like?) and an incredibly obnoxious sound, the Thrush Outsiders were plumbed into the header system and fitted below the rocker panels.”

Like the side pipes, the drone continued: “The car was an absolute bear on the street. The side pipes gave it primal sound and appearance and the Hedman headers relieved the congestion. But the biggest visceral boost came from the lower gears. Instead of taking two city blocks to go through the gears, it could be accomplished in half a block, all the while pinning you tightly against the seat.”

Then some more clunky copy: “The [lower numerical] gear ratio naturally meant that the engine would be turning at a higher rate, hence it would be louder. That volume, when multiplied by the Thrush pipes and the fact that one sat directly next to the exhaust exit meant that the driver was subjected to a fantastic amount of noise harmonics resulting in ringing ears for hours afterwards.” Sometimes, I think I still have them.

The Formula 1 L70-15 tires that were mated with 8.5-inch-wide ET Uni-Lug wheels were actually destined for a pick-up truck that belonged to the editor of Hot Rod Industry News, then a Petersen service publication. He’d sweet-talked me into scamming them, but much to my chagrin (tongue-in-cheek here), they were too large for the Corvette’s wheel houses and interfered with them long before the steering went to full lock. They did an atrocious job of visually overpowering the car. All we could was put them on for the beauty shots and roll them out of sight as soon as we were done.

My partner in this sublime stew of tomfoolery was the late Steve Collison. He lived to cut lights and pull gears like Dave Strickler. The Corvette was equipped with Wide Oval F70x15 tires. There was a trick to running bias-plies; if you got the air pressure to around 12psi, the tire would flatten out enough to give a scoche more bite from the pitiful, maybe-six-inch-wide bias-plies, and this worked especially well with an automatic. With a high-powered clutch car, it was a completely different deal. The Rat’s grunt pulverized ‘em.

To shake up the clocks with some sensational numbers, sticky drive tires were inevitable. There was just one small problem. The slicks were off one of Steve’s Chevelles, 9-inch Goodyears, and he’d screwed ‘em to steel rims. We jacked up the car and put them on. Everything was cool until he tried to drive it away. In our haste, we’d neglected to see that the inside of the steely wasn’t quite large enough to clear the calipers. When he let the clutch out, the car lurched and stopped just as quickly, as the rims grunched the calipers, flattening the bleed valve on one of them.

So then, skill not slicks would be the deciding factor.

There were two distinct episodes with this car. The antagonist was staffer Larry Schreib, an ex-Marine officer who had a way of doing things that the rest of us reefer-maddened liberals couldn’t fathom. Shortly after his CC gig, Larry proved his mettle as a founder of S-A Design. If you ever fooled with a small-block, you’ve probably thumbed one of Larry’s books. More on him in a minute.

Ed Baumgarten .c. Mid America Motorworks

Steve and I had previously established our routine behind the Orange Curtain at the OCIR outpost. As usual, operator Steve Evans had left the joint wide open for us- electricity on, clocks primed, and nobody there to stop us from the inevitable mayhem. As soon as we’d arrived, Steve went on his “I’m going to be top dog” rant, like he had to honor some sort of street-racing imperative down by the airport where he lived.

He banged gears a few times but was not satisfied with his efforts. I got in and found the groove right away and got the car off the line without smoking the tires or bogging the motor. I caught all the gears. The pass was clean, felt right. When I got back to the bleach box, Steve was whooping about what a grand pass it was. He said he could tell as soon as the car left the line. Too bad he’d forgotten to reset the clocks.

The best of five Pure Stock passes at OCIR on the Goodyear F70-15 Wide Ovals on the stock 8.5-inch steel rims netted a 13.72 at 102.04. The tires spun like crazy through Low. Between the 3.36s and less-than-able spark plugs, the motor coughed at the top of each gear and cleared the traps turning less than 5,000rpm in Third gear. We knew that this outing was just a warm-up and that we’d be coming back with guns and egos blazing.

I slipped away and made the long drive home just a little disappointed.

With the car packing its load of aftermarket goodies, we went down south again for the second round. We reset the valve lash and screwed in some fresh AC 45 XLS spark plugs. Here, memory fails again. I’m not sure who drove this time; maybe it was both of us. Talk was that 12.8’s on street tires were normal. Slipping off the line without undue wheel-spin and shifting at 6,500rpm, we ran a best of 12.64 at 114.21 and 12.65 at 114.35. I don’t remember if that made us smile or not but it was better than anything the competition could do.

A few days later it was, Larry Schreib decided that he wanted a piece of the LS6 and he got the keys and took it to Lions. The next thing that happened, the car was on the hook, vital humors seeping from somewhere deep inside it. Ol’ Lar had put a rod through the block. Ol’ Wayne Thoms wasn’t exactly inviting us to lunch the next day. The last that anybody saw of the Ontario Orange fiberglass, it was dangling from tow truck. That was in June or July of ’71.

Thirty-three years after the fact, I got call from Mike Yager, the head cheerleader at Mid America Motorworks. “Remember that Car Craft LS6 we talked about a few months ago, the one with the 4-speed that you and Steve Collison had drag tested?” he said. “I have it now, documented and all.” Then he was gone.

He sent the images you see here. He also included a fact sheet from the Mecum Auction. Seems Zora Duntov had driven the same Corvette for a Car & Driver test (6/71). It had the earliest known LS6 VIN. It had been equipped with power everything, but did not include air conditioning. It still has the burn marks from the headers, as well as the 4.56 gears it got for the test that never was.

The post Drag Strip Testing an LS6 1971 Corvette appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

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[buildercar]

New Post has been published on http://www.buildercar.com/where-are-they-now-dodge-viper-grailkeeper-herb-helbig/

Where Are They Now: Dodge Viper “Grailkeeper” Herb Helbig

When Fiat Chrysler confirmed in February that 2017 was to be the final year for the Dodge Viper, the automotive world lost a little piece of its soul. But after years of declining business — 2003 was the highpoint with 2,103 Vipers sold compared to 630 in 2016 — the news surprised no one. To recognize its run, we tracked down Herb Helbig, 66, an original Team Viper staple who ultimately became known throughout the Viper community as the car’s Grailkeeper, a nickname not lost with his 2008 retirement.

How did it all begin?

HH: I saw the Viper at the 1989 Detroit show. I’d been with the company for 17 years, and historically we didn’t take risks like that. But the management team had the right horsepower, Bob Lutz was the president, and this was his baby. I interviewed for the job and became the fourth engineer on the team in the spring of 1989.

Did its success surprise you?

HH: We bust our asses, we get the car in production in three years. And it turns out the car is an absolute friggin’ smash hit, and we can’t make enough of them. Is that when you emerged as the Grailkeeper?

HH: The four guys and Carroll Shelby who started the car, they wanted a Cobra for the ’90s: big horsepower, bare bones, big tires, in your face, out of my way, I’m-gonna-run-ya-into-the-ground kind of car. About 1995, there were ideas about automatic transmissions, cruise control, cupholders.

And you said …

HH: I was so caught up in it. My wife said get it together or she was gonna leave me. I said: “We’re not doing any of that shit. We’re not having a f——- automatic transmission. Forget traction control. I don’t want ABS brakes.” A lot of customers found out I kept all this bullshit at bay and started calling me the Grailkeeper.

How difficult was it to accomplish?

HH: An automatic meant redoing the entire frame. That made it easy for me to say no because the business case backed me up. ABS, I finally decided — because the car was so popular amongst so many people, including those who had no driving skills—it was really probably safer to have. I held off the cupholders.

And now production will cease in August …

HH: And that’ll be the end of it. Although, knowing the guys on the team, I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re still trying to figure out a way to resurrect, rebirth, something. I told them, “Look, if you want to really hit a home run, take the Fiat 124, figure out a way to jam a Hemi in it, stick in the Viper six-speed and rear axle, and you would have a f—— land rocket. And it would be Son of Viper, so you could get a bazillion miles of PR for that. I don’t know if they’re doing that. They consider me a crackpot already, pretty much.

This all must feel quite strange.

HH: I think it sucks, but I believe management’s philosophy is: If it isn’t going to make money, I don’t want it. They refuse to look at the soft-side value of a product that is so outrageous. It shows that the company is vibrant, alive, not afraid to take risks. So it’s bittersweet for me. We certainly have nothing to hang our head about. I mean, the car created a legend in the first two years it was in production.

What is the Viper’s legacy?

HH: It was the singular, most purpose-built American sports car. Its performance was the best value on the planet. Even at $100,000, Viper had performance that $500,000 cars didn’t have.

Where can people find you these days?

HH: I spend a lot of time with the Viper clubs, speaking at the get-togethers. So I’m still in touch with a lot of the Viper nation. I live in Lake Orion, Michigan, with my wife, Deb. I’ve got a 2009 Viper special-edition coupe that I took on the Hot Rod Power Tour. I did the same with my Plymouth Prowler after I made it look like a Bonneville Roadster. I work around the house. We’ve got a place in Key Largo, Florida, and then Deb has a family home in Maine. We have a grand old time, and it’s nice to be remembered by guys like you.

You were always good with the media.

HH: I have fond memories of doing the PR stuff, but it was a little nerve-racking because we let journalists drive the cars on racetracks. All my white hair came early because of those events.

Speaking of tracks, are you racing?

HH: No, but I’m doing something else. Chrysler recently closed the Walter P. Chrysler Museum in Michigan. I’m very unhappy about it, and I wrote [Fiat Chrysler CEO] Sergio Marchionne and told him that. I’ve been working with the historical society, the guys who maintain all the cars in the museum, and restoring the early Viper mules so we can take them to various get-togethers and Chrysler affairs. I’ve been doing that pro bono work for a couple of years now. It’s kind of fun.

In retrospect, would you change anything about your time on Team Viper?

HH: If my life ended tonight, I would have zero regrets. Zero regrets. Because I’ve lived the life people only dream about.

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[the-record-newspaper]

The Killing of Rhonda Hinson Installment VII

Greg McDowell and Rhonda Hinson

By LARRY J. GRIFFIN                                                                                            Special Investigative Reporter

I hope you’re still exercising a lot and eating less food.  Maybe you can start taking vitamins to make up for what you don’t eat.  Are you going to be at least 2 lbs. lighter when I see you Friday?  Remember, no cheating.—Greg McDowell letter to Rhonda Hinson, December, 1981

Jill Turner-Mull was elated that Fall Semester, 1981 at Western Carolina was drawing to a close—she said as much to her best friend, Rhonda Hinson, in a 169-word missive penned on December 8th. The only specter looming between her and Christmas vacation was the inevitable battery of end-of-semester exams.

“I have so many tests these next two weeks, I think I’m just going to pull every hair out of my head.  I’ll be so glad when Dec. 18 gets here,” she writes.  

Her roommate, Katie Hudson [Purgason], was going to complete exams earlier and would leave campus on December 14th; so, Jill faced the prospect of being alone in their dorm room—she was less than excited about it.  “Katie is getting to leave Mon. December 14 because she doesn’t have anymore exams. I’m going to be by myself.  I’ll be so lonely.”

Jill’s boyfriend, Mark Turner, who would be completing his Fall Semester at Elon College, was to travel to Cullowhee to retrieve her.  “Mark is suppose [sic] to come get me then, but I’m trying to talk him into coming up here earlier say, Wed. [16th] or Thursday [17th].  [In his first interview with law enforcement on January 4, 1996—over 14-years subsequent to Rhonda’s murder—Mark Turner stated that he “thinks he returned home on December 17, 1981...” and was looking forward to being with Jill Turner.]

It was the next day—December 9th—that Jill placed the chartreuse envelop, destined for 1009 Hillcrest Street, Valdese, in the campus mail.

Greg McDowell was also looking toward the completion of the Fall Semester at N.C. State.  He too had been studying for exams when he wrote to girlfriend Rhonda a few days before he would be traveling westward to Burke County and to her. “…I’ve been so busy studying for final exams this week.  All I do is eat, sleep, and study for those exams.  I miss you and I love you very much.”

After expressing amorous aphorisms, Greg inquired after Rhonda’s exercising and food consumption:

…I hope you’re still exercising a lot and eating less food. Maybe you can start taking vitamins to make up for what you don’t eat.  Are you going to be at least 2 lbs [sic] lighter when I see you Friday! Remember, no cheating.  I can’t wait to see you Friday.  I’ll be home for a long time and we’ll spend Christmas together this year.  I love you very much and I’ll see you Friday.  I have to go study now.  

I love you Forever,

Your B + U man [Brontosaurs and Unicorn]

During the Summer and Fall, 1981, “…Rhonda had grown increasingly sensitive about her weight, and Greg’s remarks seemed to really hurt her but also seemed to make her eat even more,” her mother, Judy Hinson wrote in her personal recollections:

She said Greg made smart remarks about her eating and called her a fat pig….If Greg was here at meal time, she’d would either get a plate and stand beside the refrigerator so he could not see her eat or run in the kitchen and pack her mouth full when he was not looking.  This upset me and I told her so….

Rhonda Hinson stood 5’ 6” tall and weighed 130 lbs. In 1981, body-fat measures; e.g., Body Mass Index (BMI) and Waist-to-Height Ratio (WHtR) had yet to be popularized.  However, when Rhonda’s height and weight data are entered into a BMI calculator, the resultant value is 21.0.  The “normal weight” range is, 18.5—24.9.  Though this measure does not account for body type, specifically muscle and bone distribution, it certainly adjudges a person of Rhonda’s stature to be well within the “normal” range.  

On Sunday December 13th, Rhonda—who was slightly older than Greg, Jill, or Mark—turned 19-years-old.  Greg came home from N.C. State that weekend for her birthday celebration; however, neither Jill nor Mark was able to travel to Valdese for it.  And Jill Turner-Mull gave her best friend a “heads-up.”  She writes, “Me [sic] and Mark aren’t coming home this weekend; but, when we get home, we’ll all have to go out.”

Sometime subsequent to arriving home from school circa, December 17th, Mark Turner journeyed to the “new” Valley Hills Mall in Hickory to select a gift for his girlfriend, Jill.  He admitted to “putting Christmas shopping off to the last minute;” so, he asked Rhonda to accompany him.  While browsing in a store on the second floor, they selected a “blue sweater” for Jill and “maybe Rhonda buying Greg a coat.”  

Jill Turner-Mull recalled talking to Rhonda on Saturday, December 19th but averred that she never mentioned the eleventh-hour shopping excursion with Mark.  And she doubts that an additional gift was purchased for Greg—Rhonda had previously boasted to her, during a luncheon over the Thanksgiving holidays, about having completed all her Christmas shopping early.  

The date and substance of the shopping trip notwithstanding, Rhonda—at some juncture—removed her gray, hooded sweatjacket and tossed it in the backseat of Mark’s gold-colored Buick.   Fourteen years later, he recalled Rhonda’s leaving the sweatjacket with the initials embossed on one side:  HH WTC [likely, Hinson and Harris:  Women’s Tennis Champions].  

To commemorate the season, Hickory Steel scheduled a Christmas party for all employees for Tuesday evening, December 22nd.  A sign-up list was being circulated amongst employees.  Rhonda affixed her signature to it.  

“When Rhonda first mentioned the Christmas party, she didn’t know whether she was going or not,” Judy Hinson recorded in her personal recollections.  “…She told me that Betty [McDowell] kept asking for the list so she could see who was going.  Finally…they had to let her see it.  When she saw Rhonda’s name, she put her and Charles’s name down.  On Sunday after church when they went out to lunch, Rhonda said Betty told Greg she would get his suit pressed to wear to the party.”

Though she remained reticent at the time, Rhonda had already decided that she was not going to ask Greg to accompany her, and if he opted to attend the party—with his parents—she wasn’t going, and told her mother, Judy, as much.  “Rhonda was growing tired of Greg’s arrogant attempts at controlling her—where she went, who she talked to—everything.  She said, ‘Mom, if he goes with me, then I am not going to be able to talk with anybody—he is so jealous that he will question me every time I talk to someone.’ My daughter didn’t want the hassle.”

The week before she was killed, Rhonda received her first Christmas bonus from Hickory Steel.  If she even entertained the notion of attending the company party, she realized that she didn’t have any appropriate clothing to wear.  So, “she decided she would spend it all on an outfit to wear to the party,” Ms. Hinson recalled.  “On Saturday [December 19th], she asked me to go shopping with her.”

Though her boyfriend was home from college, Rhonda knew that she could not shop for clothes with him.  “Everytime she got her check, she bought something for Greg; but if she bought for herself and he found out, he said she was being wasteful and would get mad….If Rhonda bought new clothes she would hide them from Greg. He told her that a person only needed three changes of clothing.  Rhonda loved new clothes but when she went out with Greg, she could not wear anything new. She said she had to wash anything she bought before she wore it so Greg would not know it was new,” Ms. Hinson recollected.    

The Saturday shopping trip was a memorable one. The plan was to travel to Morganton to find an outfit; but despite their best efforts, Judy and Rhonda could not find anything that she liked.  So, they returned to the stores on Valdese’s main street—again no luck.  “We went to Hickory to the new mall,” Judy remembered. “She tried on lots of clothes; we laughed because she tried on really far out things that we knew she would not buy. She bought our lunch and we laughed and talked.  We then went to the old mall [Catawba Mall].”  

Rhonda’s mother noted that each time they entered or exited her new Datsun, she locked the doors.  

“That whole day, neither Rhonda or [sic] I mentioned Greg.  She was happier that day than I had seen her in a long time,” Judy observed.  

The day-long shopping excursion produced no satisfactory results; so a weary mother and daughter journeyed home.  “I said, ‘Rhonda it is late, about 5 p.m.  …We should have called your dad; he’ll be worried about us.’  ‘I’ll take care of dad.’”  

Then her mood abruptly changed.  “Oh God, if Greg has called, he will really be mad,” Rhonda exclaimed to her mother.  

“It was like she panicked then.  She began to drive really fast.  I told her we were so late already; there was not any point to rushing now.  She stopped laughing and talking then.  She turned the radio on and was quiet the rest of the way home.”

When Rhonda and Judy arrived back home, Brother Robbie confirmed his sister’s prescient fear.  “Rhonda, you had better call Greg.  He has been calling all day and I think he is mad.”

Rhonda Hinson had less than 72-hours to live.